


blunt thou the lion's paws,

by burningcas



Series: The Lesser of Two Evils | Deacon & Tempest [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Deacon needs a hug, F/M, Graphic Description of Injury, Hurt/Comfort, I reject reality and substitute my own, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Mental Instability, Near Death Experiences, Not Canon Compliant, Slow Burn, Sole needs a hug, Stalking, Undercover Missions, because it's deacon, because we got two people with commitment issues here, just a big ol whumpfest, vignette-ish style
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningcas/pseuds/burningcas
Summary: She's survived heartbreak, war, and the goddamn end of the world. But this shifty, smooth-talking "spy" with a penchant for making pre-war references in the most inopportune times might just be the death of her.Or, the one where two double-edged people with enough baggage between the two of them to sink a ship team up in order to save the world. No biggie.
Relationships: Deacon & Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Series: The Lesser of Two Evils | Deacon & Tempest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741957
Comments: 11
Kudos: 46





	1. [1]

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I'm still salty about not being able to romance Deacon, whatsitoya?
> 
> unbeta'd as usual, you know the drill

Take heart in time of sorrow,

Though you face death’s door.

The candle flickers before it dies,

And wounded lions roar.

\- Shmuel Hanagid

* * *

They were planned to go back home the day after the bombs fell. Home, away from Boston, away from Massachusetts, and away from the sense of displacement that it would give Claudia. 

Home, nestled alongside some blink-and-miss-it road off of one of the many canyons cutting through the Rocky Mountains. Where her dogs ( _Watcher, Roo, Dixie, Bee, Lieutenant, Ellie_ , she forces her mind to wrap around the names) are waiting for her and Nate and now Shaun. 

_“You can’t just be a forest dwelling hermit for the rest of your life, you know,”_ Nate would always tease her.

_“Why not?”_ she’d reply, _“That’s how I met you, isn’t it?”_ Nate would then roll his eyes, that gentle smile on his face, before he would wrap an arm around her shoulders and place a kiss to the top of her head.

Sitting, now, on the chilled floor while looking up into the window of the cryopod in front of her, she finds it difficult to attach the memories she has to the scene before her. Can’t seem to make the connection in her mind that the thing ( _“Person!”_ the noise in her head screams, _“He was a person!”_ ) is the same one in these recollections of a man whose laughter rang with such a honey-sweet cadence, who would drink coffee with way too much sugar, who was _so excited_ to be a father, and who had a habit of humming when he worked with his hands or when the silence got to be too much.

The silence was all consuming now. And Nate was in no position to be filling it.

_“I’m not giving you Shaun!”_

Regardless of how corny Claudia thought the comparison was, it doesn’t change the fact that it felt as if she was watching the entire thing happen in slow motion.

_I’ve never heard him raise his voice like that_ , she remembers thinking. And then the shot rang out.

The back of Nate’s head is in bits, frozen to the back of the cryopod. Frozen streams of congealed blood draw stark lines down his face from his nose and from the bullet hole in his temple. 

Claudia should probably stop looking, but she quite honestly doesn’t know what to do otherwise. She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting there, but her hip aches something awful and her feet have fallen asleep. The frost that covered her has long been melted and she now sits in a puddle.

The silence of the vault burrows into her bones, makes a home in her rib cage that makes it hard to take a full breath. Even the buzzing in her head has nothing to say.

Claudia’s face is numb and she knows it’s not from the cryostasis. 

_Nate is dead,_ she reminds herself, _Shaun is gone. You are alone. They took your baby. Nate can’t help you._

She watches herself rise to her feet, the snapping of her joints seem as loud as the bomb was as they ring out into the deadened room. She looks around her for the first time since she woke up, taking in too much and nothing at all. The red light is what catches her attention. 

**Status:** **_Deceased_ **

**Status:** **_Deceased_ **

**Status:** **_Deceased_ **

**Status:** **_Deceased_ **

**_Deceased_ **

**_Deceased_ **

**_deceased_ **

**_Deceaseddeceased_ **

**_Deceased_ **

**_Deceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceased_ **

**_deceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceased_ **

**_deceaseddeceaseddeceaseddeceased_ **

Claudia turns back to the mausoleum behind her. She’s second guessing if it was a good idea to look through the terminal or not.

_Nate is dead. Shaun is gone. You are alone. They took your baby. Nate can’t help you._

Her sight is trained in front of her as she leaves the room. She feels the cold from the corpses around her follow on the way out. 

The vault looks different from when they first got there, she supposes. Then again, she wasn’t really in the mindset to be critiquing the interior decorating of a post-nuclear vault. As it is now, the metal walls and pipes are rusted, the air is stagnant with dust and lack of use, and red alarm lights illuminate the hallways in front of her.

Claudia tries to be as quiet as possible. Just because she was the only one to wake up in the vault doesn’t mean she’s the only one roaming the vault.

The first room she comes across seems to be the commissary. There is little to be found but a police baton. She takes it, doubting that she’s going to be of any use with it. A room that holds bunks but no bodies to put in them is where she tries to find any evidence of people. Little but degraded knick-knacks are found shoved in random, forgotten corners of the room, until she finds a bag. It’s a small backpack that smells of mildew and the outermost fabric flakes off if she scrapes it with her nail, but it leaves her better off than she was.

The gun in the Overseer’s office makes her skin crawl when she picks it up. She leaves it tucked in the belt of her vault suit and stashes the bullets in her bag. 

By the time she finds the pip-boy and forces her leadened limbs to operate the vault door controls, she’s floating. Her mind is full of cotton that screeches against each other when she tries to have a single thought about anything that’s going on. Her body feels as if it will start unraveling into space. The pack hugging her back, the pip-boy clutching to her arm, and the cold weight of the gun against her hip are the only sensations she can feel through the murky soup that now makes up her consciousness. 

Claudia doesn’t know that she’s made it to the elevator until it jolts awake and begins its ascension. She can barely make out the screeching of the elevator’s rusted machinery over the cacophony in her head.

When she looks up, she sees the opening of the platform break apart as the lift brings her closer. The light of the sun feels like stakes in her eyes when they meet, which is why it takes a moment for her to sight to come back to her.

What little air she is able to take in is ripped from her the moment she looks out into the remnants of the world. 

The world is shrouded in a haze. Color has been seeped out of it all. It smells of rust and decay. Remains of those she can recall working the vault litter the ground around her and Claudia still can’t feel warmth.

The first coherent thought that hits her, hits her so suddenly that she’s taken aback by its presence.

_I’m the only one left_.

And with that thought brings about a smothering, choking, devouring sense of utter dread. She can feel it fill her from her feet up, the loneliness that comes with such an idea permeating her entire being with a primal fear. The next thought that she can translate winds her as much as the first.

_Shaun is out there in that._

Claudia falls to her knees. She looks out to the empty wilderness behind her and the only thing that keeps her company is the wind.

_Nate is dead. Shaun is gone. You are alone. They took your baby. Nate can’t help you._

Fear is washed away by a more tangible feeling, one that Claudia holds onto as tightly as she can. It brings feeling back into her limbs and throws the cotton out of her head. Standing to her feet again, Claudia curates the emotion until there is no difference between her and it.

Turning and taking her first steps into the wasteland, she is held together by only one thing: rage.

* * *

There had been whisperings of Institute operations to the north-west for years now. But all that’s out there are a nasty case of bloatflies, a Mr. Handy that never really goes out beyond its usual perimeters, and a bunch of pre-war vault-tec equipment out in the boonies. When the rumors had been at its height, the Railroad starting putting the area on their radar. They had set up a couple bugs in and around the area just in case they could get any sort of idea of what the Institute was trying to do next so they wouldn’t be taken by surprise.

Which is why, when some of the recent readings had been picking up remote electronic interference and major underground movement, the head honcho sent Deacon to check it all out.

Now, Deacon knows that the moment you don’t expect something to happen is exactly when it’s going to happen, but he can’t help but think that maybe those back at the nest are just holding onto every little thing that may (unlikely) or may not (likely) be something to do with the Institute. After the whole Switchboard fiasco, resources are thin if not nonexistent and Deacon isn’t really jiving with the whole ‘go hike out to the other side of the Commonwealth because one of Tinker Tom’s toys says so’ plan. 

And yet, here he is, stationed on a snug little hill at an old Railroad watch site that overlooks a good majority of the Commonwealth. He sits on some rinky-dink chair that’s held together by rust and hope with his rifle secure across his lap. 

He got there a few hours earlier when the sun was still tucked behind the horizon, and the only noteworthy things that he has seen within those hours were a distant molerat trip into its own burrow with an ungraceful squeak and the bark of a tree that looks like a frowning face if he tilts his head and squints his eyes. Other than that, there had been nothing but radio silence and certainly no Institute happenings in the area.

But there is something in his gut that tells him not to pack it in and write it off as a false alarm just yet. His gut instinct hasn’t led him to make too catastrophic of decisions so far, so it’s pretty much the one thing he trusts most in this world. And right now, it’s telling him to hold out a little longer. Whether that’s just him holding out hope that this isn’t just a major waste of time is an idea that is put straight to the back of his mind as soon as a sound rumbles out from the locked up vault entrance.

He places the stock of his rifle against his shoulder, eye glued to the sight. A god awful screeching announces to the whole Commonwealth that the once-dead vault has resurrected. Deacon holds his breath, anticipating a bunch of Institute goonies to come flooding out at any moment. What actually emerges is less dramatic but decidedly more captivating.

Her head is placed right in his crosshairs and he watches this shiny, fresh-outta-the-box vault dweller get her first taste of the Wastes and all its glory. 

_Yep, take it all in, Princess._

Deacon has had his share of encounters with vaults and their residents and it never fails to bring him a dark glimmer of amusement to see them experience the Wasteland firsthand.

But there’s something… off about this one. Disregarding the fact that Vault 111 has been considered a dead zone for forever, the way that she just stands there with a blank expression, looking around with marble-like eyes makes Deacon think if she’s not actually just a newly deployed synth. Then she falls to the ground. He holds his breath as she looks around again and he swears that she makes direct eye contact with him. But she must not have noticed him as she gets back onto steady feet and walks away from the vault.

  
 _Well,_ Deacon muses, _This should be interesting._


	2. [2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends are made. Anonymous help is received. A journey continues.

Claudia hates this house. It was only supposed to be temporary until they went back home, their  _ real _ home. Staying in the suburbs with neighbors surrounding them on all sides and fucking HOAs and picket fences that don’t do a damn thing other than make everything look uniform and ignoring invites for neighborhood barbeques that they’d have as if the entire fucking world wasn’t going to shit around them and -

She closes her eyes, forces air into her heaving lungs. There is a pressure in her throat and she doesn’t know if it’s a scream or she’s going to throw up, but it’s giving her a headache. She stands just off of the curb in front of the house, hands curled into fists, running her nails across her palms.

The conversation that she just got done having with Codsworth (if she wasn’t a hair's width away from going completely batshit, she would probably be laughing over the irony that the robot butler is the one to have survived all of this) is running over and over through her head like a broken holotape. 

_ 200 years. And this goddamn house is still standing. _

Codsworth said that he had put some things in the little safe that they had after they left for the vault. She’s kind of curious to see what a Mr. Handy would consider worthy for safe keeping, but that means she has to go inside the house.

Claudia knows what safe Codsworth was referring to, she knows exactly where it is, and she remembers the code to get into it.

081677.

Shaun’s birthday. 

The obnoxiously orange door is staring her down as hard as she’s staring it down. She rolls her eyes at herself and shakes her head as if to rattle loose her own trepidations. Her feet take her to the door and it opens with a whine.

The inside is about as trashed as she expected, but it’s just close enough to how she remembers it. Its likeness unsettles her even further, a feat she didn’t think possible. She half expects Nate to come walking out from the hallway and crack a joke about having to call the landlord about the state of the place.

Glass and leaves crunch under her feet. The house groans around her as if it’s heaving a sigh. She doesn’t look into Shaun’s room. Can’t look into Shaun’s room. Instead, she veers into what was her and Nate’s room. Stepping over scrap that she guesses used to be the furniture, she finds the loose slat on the floor that they used to store the safe.

The amount of dust that billows up and the earthy smell that is released when she digs out the little lap-sized safe out of the ground makes gives her a pretty good idea of how long it’s been since this thing has seen the light of day. The code sliders are rusted (she’s starting to see a common theme around here) and they groan when she moves them. She opens it and she is drained.

Car keys, her and Nate’s wallets, a tiny pair of yarn booties that Claudia knitted, a single picture frame, and various other snapshots of what used to be their life sit inside. 

She picks up her wallet even though she knows there’s nothing of note inside. She does the same with Nate’s. His is more used, more organized. She takes out his driver’s license. He looks back at her with a goofy grin that he managed to get in before the person at the DMV took his picture. All she can see is his frozen, death-glazed eyes staring into nothing through a haze of blood.

Her hands are shaking now and she puts it back and reaches for the picture frame. She knows what picture it holds before she even looks at it. 

It’s of them. Sitting on the porch of their home back in the Rockies. Nate sits on the step behind her, arms wrapped around her. The dogs are piled around them. Bee is licking Nate’s face, Watcher is trying to crawl into Claudia’s lap like he isn’t some 100 pounds of dog. They are laughing. They are happy.

Claudia loses time as she loses herself in the picture. If she lets herself, she can still smell the pines that surround the property, hear the chickens clucking around in their pen, feel Nate’s humming like she’s resting her head on his chest.

The sun is high in the sky by the time she decides that this is getting her nowhere. She takes the picture from the frame, folds it carefully in the middle, and stores it in a small pocket inside of her bag. She leaves everything else.

Codsworth had informed her that there may be people in town and that there may be a chance that they can help her find Shaun. Claudia has no other lead, so she heads south.

It’s strange walking down the middle of the road. She feels like she should be ready to get out of the way of traffic. The broken down husks that used to be cars that litter the roadways are enough to make her think the notion ridiculous. Claudia is pleasantly surprised that the wooden bridge doesn’t collapse as soon as she steps onto it. Silence still shrouds the world like a blanket. It makes her think that’s she’s doing something she’s not supposed to. 

Her nerves are on fire, have been since she left the vault. She has to keep herself from jumping at every little sound that happens, but it’s so quiet that even the littlest noises thunder in her ears. There is a feeling that Claudia can’t quite name that makes her keep looking behind her as if something is going to jump out and drag her off to her demise. 

She feels like she’s being hunted.

Movement up ahead stops her cold. Then noise, a bark? She stalks forward, thankful that the thin boots of her vault suit roll across the ground silently. She takes the security baton and grips it tightly, holding it across in front of her, at the ready. Noises are coming up from the Red Rocket station up the road. 

The station is empty as far as she can see so far, so she approaches the building. A quick glance through the windows and she sees that the same can be said for the inside as well. Claudia hums to herself in contemplation and turns to leave, but before she gets a full step in, something bursts from the ground right by her feet.

It happens so quickly, she isn’t able to process the pink growling mass that is flying towards her face before she brings the baton down on it, sending it to the ground with a squeal. All hell then proceeds to break loose.

The ground trembles as what seems to be a dozen of the pink screaming mounds of flesh break through it and head directly for Claudia. The one that she hit first is the closest, and it tries again by rushing her legs. A swift kick to the midsection punts it away. The others are swarming her, surrounding her on all sides. She’s trying to beat a path away from them, their gnashing teeth catching on her vault suit, nicking her skin. She lets out a whispered curse and decides not to waste time and makes a run for it instead. One of the broken down cars catches her eye and she books it.

Little feet thunder after her. Looking back, she sees a few of them disappear. She knows that she only has moments before they’re on her again. As quickly as they dug themselves underground, they are breaking up out of the dirt in front of her and she surprises even herself by vaulting over the rest of them, slamming onto the hood of the car. 

The slight elevation gives her a better vantage point, but her shoulder is starting to seize up and it’s getting harder to swing the baton with enough force to do any damage.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she growls before she whips the 10 mm from her belt, checks to see if it’s loaded, and fires it. The gunshot rings out and every nerve in her cringes at it. 

The rat...things are scuttering around, trying to get their stubby legs up the car to reach her. They’re tenacious, she’ll give them that. She shuffles higher up on the hood, gun held out in front of her. Claudia has only ever fired a gun on one occasion in her life, and that was 5 (215) years ago with Nate’s dad. Her shots hit the dirt more than they hit flesh, but there are a few that she knows hits something if the noises that they make are to be of any indication.

By the time she’s finally got a rhythm ( _ Breathe in, readjust, breathe out, squeeze the trigger, repeat),  _ the gun clicks, its magazine empty. She remembers the rest of the bullets in her bag, but before she can think of a way to get them, a blur of color sweeps in and charges into the remaining rats. Claudia freezes, knowing that she’s not going to be able to fight  _ that _ off as well, until she realizes that it’s going after the rats and not her for the moment.

A flurry of teeth and fur and a battle vigor that she has never seen makes quick work of the fleshy beasts, making it seem like child's play. It is then that she realizes her savior comes in the form of a dog.

Claudia stays on the car as the dog sniffs around the now dead rats. His ears are perked, his head low. Then he turns to Claudia. She says nothing, makes no movement. The two find them find themselves in a staring contest. Then his tail begins to wag. His tongue lolls from his bloodied maw and he pads on up closer to the car. Claudia is as still as she can be as she watches the dog lift his front paws up onto the car hood. The dog lets out a low “wuf”. She stares at the dog some more. He hasn’t stopped wagging his tail and, ignoring the blood and carnage around him, he seems like a normal dog that isn’t going to rip her throat out. At least not at the moment.

“Hello,” she says lamely. The tail wagging intensifies. Claudia sits up a bit straighter. The dog seems to not take that as a threat, putting her more at ease. He sticks his nose out towards her, trying to get a better sniff.

She hesitantly puts her hand out in front of her, letting the dog inspect it. He turns it around this way and that with his nose before he places his head under her hand. She gives a tentative pet. He lowers his head between his front paws, tail still going strong. Claudia turns her body and starts to slide herself off of the car. The dog follows suit, happily looking towards her for direction.

Claudia looks around. This dog is very well behaved and she wouldn’t be surprised if his owner is not too far away from him. But in the aftermath of the ambush, the only living things that she is aware of are her and the dog. She scratches behind his ear.

“You all alone out here, bud?” she asks. Claudia steps over the rats and walks back over to the station, the dog following close behind. 

The doors to the station are in surprisingly good condition, and they give her no trouble when she opens them. The dog trots in after her, nails clicking on the cracked linoleum. She doesn’t find much in the station that is of much use other than a first aid kit with a couple stimpaks and a dose of med-x. Shoving those in her bag, she figures that she should start figuring out an actual way of organizing her pack. Having done a sweep through, she turns to the dog.

“Well,” she says, gaining his attention again, “you along for the ride, then?” The dog’s tail wags. She huffs a breath of amusement, gives him a pat, and heads back outside. Claudia reloads her gun before she forgets and the two of them head into town.

* * *

Deacon doesn’t know whether to be amused or to feel sorry for the vaultie. The Institute must not have given her any sort of Wasteland crash-course if how she’s bumbling along has anything to do with it. But then again, your typical vault dweller doesn’t usually have any need to use a gun either. Deacon’s still on the fence about the whole thing.

At least she has the sense to be somewhat aware of her surroundings, Deacon surmises. He follows at a distance, naturally, with most of his glimpses of the stranger being through his scope.

Deacon is almost sure that he’s about to watch her get got by a pack of molerats at one point.

_ Not in the Commonwealth for a full day just to get eaten by molerats. That’ll make for one hell of an epitaph. _

He and she are spared from seeing that future come into fruition when the vaultie meets her new friend.

She and her new companion head out south. Deacon stays east, taking out a few bloodbugs that are hanging around farther up her path. If her performance with the molerats is of any indication, she’s not too savvy with that little pistol she has in her grip, and bloodbugs are some nasty little bastards to try and get target practice on.

As they start wandering into town, Deacon scales to the top of one of the decrepit buildings, giving him a good vantage point of the main street.

He spots trouble at the same time the dog does. Raiders are coming out of the woodwork, a gun fight breaking out between them and a couple people up near the old museum. Letting out a gruff bark, the dog charges into the fray, leaving the vaultie floundering behind him.

“Wait!” he hears her hiss, but the dog has already dedicated himself to the fight by the time she runs out after him. The dog latches himself onto a raider crouched behind a small wall of sandbags, jaw locked soundly onto the guy’s neck and shoulder.

The raider’s gurgling death brings the attention of the others across the street. The vaultie barely has any time to duck behind the brick wall of an old hardware store before they begin firing.

She flinches everytime the bullets break apart the brick by her face. She is damn near curled in on herself with her gun held in both her hands close to her body. One of the raiders makes a break across the road towards her position.

Deacon’s, like, 98% sure that she’s going to get killed if she’s just going to rely on the dog to do all of the dirty work. He debates just being a passive observer, and if she happens to get herself killed, then, hey, less paperwork for him. He did what Desdemona sent him out to do; he got intel on the readings by the vault. But that gut feeling is still there, and it’s making his trigger finger twitchy. It’s telling him that there’s more to this than what he can see on the surface. What was that old saying about the cat and curiosity? 

“Aw, hell, Princess,” he mumbles under his breath as he lifts his rifle. His bullet finds its spot in the raider’s leg, felling the man with curse of pain. The dog takes his chance and charges the man on the ground, finishing off the raider in a rather bloody fashion.

The vault dweller chances a glance around her cover, catching a glimpse of her dog getting down to business. Deacon sees her take a breath before she breaks from her cover, sliding down behind the sandbags. She lifts the gun, her shoulders are too tense, and she fires. It misses its supposed target, but it makes the remaining raider duck around a pillar for cover. Her head is barely behind the sandbags before a bullet whizzes past her. Before she rises out of cover again, she pops the magazine out of gun, checks its load, and pops it back.

The raiders up ahead are gaining ground and Deacon gives her a solid 2 minutes before they’re on her like flies on shit.

He tries to thin out the crowd up ahead as best he can without drawing too much attention, the suppressor on his rifle making it hard to get clean shots from such a distance. 

The vault dweller whips her gun out once more, patiently waiting for the raider to peer around the pillar. The dog is serpentining farther away from her, gaining on the last raider. Which, makes the raider see him as a greater threat than the bad shot from across the road, so his attention switches to the dog.

That dog’s quicker than he looks, scrappy too. But that’s probably how it’s lived as long as it has, Deacon thinks. Then again, that’s how anything lasts for long out here.

As the dog reaches his target, it causes the raider to be pushed out of his cover just enough, and the vaultie’s patience is rewarded as her shot pierces the raider’s side.

She almost looks surprised.

Deeming the wounded raider as no longer a threat, the dog returns to the vault dweller. She still sits at the sandbags, the maimed body of the previous occupant crumpled at her feet. Deacon watches as she looks down at it and he can almost see the gears turning in her head. She reaches for something in the body’s pockets and pulls out a single frag grenade. She’s holding it like it’s going to reach out and bite her, or something. She delicately stores it in her backpack before turning her attention up the road.

By now, most of whoever the raiders were fighting are dead and now it’s just the vaultie and her dog against a handful of raiders. He can see her weighing her odds.

Staying close to the buildings, the two of them sneak closer to the museum. Deacon contemplates moving closer as well.

As they approach, she fires two shots, both hitting their mark. The dog runs in and goes for the knees of a nearby raider. There’s a man on the balcony of the museum. Deacon puts him in his sights, but he seems to be aiming for the raiders, so Deacon leaves him be. 

The vault dweller seems to be getting the hang of things a bit better, but anything would be an improvement from her previous exploits.

Deacon mostly uses his rifle as a means to get a better look at the action, only taking out a straggler once. Other than that, between the vaultie, the dog, and the balcony man, they take care of things without too many hiccups themselves.

Once the dust has settled, balcony man starts gesturing frantically down at the vault dweller, panic making it difficult for Deacon to coherently read his lips. Before he can try to translate, balcony man runs back inside. Vaultie throws her hands up in what Deacon guesses is exasperation. She looks down at the dog at her side, picks up another, bigger gun at the door of the museum, and disappears into it. 

Deacon clicks his tongue. What he probably  _ should _ be doing now is to start heading back to HQ and giving the lowdown to Des. But then again, he isn’t sure he’s confident in the info that he’s going to be able to give her. There are so many unknowns in this situation and Deacon doesn’t like not knowing.

His decision already made before he has to think too hard about it, he settles in, lights a cigarette, and waits for the Princess to make another appearance. This is his job, he tells himself, there’s still intel to be gathered here.

And if he could bet caps on it, also one hell of a story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> interactions are coming soon, I promise.


	3. [3]

So, there happens to be 20 foot tall carnivorous lizards roaming this hellscape, because of fucking course there is. And of course,  _ she _ is the one that had to deal with it. Never mind the fact that she has literally never been in a suit of power armor until twenty minutes ago  _ or _ fired a minigun, let alone seen one in person. Oh, and fighting giant, pissed off, dinosaur-looking motherfuckers also happens to be something missing from her toolbox.

Fucking ridiculous.

The power armor is more frame than armor at this point, probably due to the amount of times the deathclaw (yeah, a real astute observation in the naming of that monstrosity) picked her up like a rag doll and slammed her into the concrete. She won’t be surprised if she’s covered head to toe in bruises.

Claudia stands within the ruins of the museum with the rag-tag group of people. She takes her helmet off as they bicker quietly amongst each other. 

“So, what? We’re just going to keep making decisions based on some chem-head’s ‘visions’ still?” the dark haired woman snaps. Said chem-head sits quietly in the middle of it all, seemingly not taking offence.

“What other options do we have, Marcy?” the colonial cosplayer ( _ Preston, _ Claudia reminds herself) replies.

“Look where it’s gotten us so far! We don’t even know if the place exists! We can’t keep going like this. If we haven’t found it yet, that’s ‘cause it’s probably not real!”

“We just haven’t reached it yet, is all,” the slight old woman gently says.

“Oh yeah?” Marcy spits, “Which one of your chems told you that bit of bullshit, huh?”

“Alright, alright,” a burly, dark haired man calmly drawls. He pushes himself off of the wall that he was leaning on, his hands held out in front of him in a placating manner. “Mama Murphy says that it’s not too much farther ahead. And I don’t know about y’all, but I’m willing to walk a little bit further if it means I can finally settle for a moment.” Marcy rolls her eyes, but Sturges continues before she can cut him off. “RIght now, we got something we’re working towards. Like Preston said, if we don’t follow Mama Murphy’s suggestion, what else are we going to do? Stay here and hope more raiders don’t happen in on this place?” Marcy folds her arms across her chest, glaring a hole through Sturges’ head but says nothing. Sturges nods. “Alright. So, if no one else has any other ideas…” he gestures widely, bringing his point to a conclusion.

Claudia walks up to Preston who is rubbing his forehead with his hand. He looks up at her as she approaches.

“Where are you going?” Claudia asks. Preston gives her a quick once over, probably trying to decide if she seems trustworthy enough for the truth.

“Mama Murphy’s been talking about a place up to the north. Calls it a ‘sanctuary’ where we might be able to settle.” Preston informs her. Claudia’s eyebrows furrow.

“Like Sanctuary Hills?” she asks, shooting a glance to Mama Murphy who sits there with a serene smile on her face as she pets the dog (Dogmeat, Claudia had previously learned).

“You know what she’s talking about?” Preston turns fully to her, hope painfully written across his weary features.

“Uhm, I know that there’s an old neighborhood just north of here. Just came from it, actually.”

“You’ve been there? Is it what Mama’s been talking about?” Claudia gets the slight impression that she’s being interrogated. 

“Right, like we’re just going to trust some rando to lead us to safety,” Marcy interjects. Claudia’s headache returns, though, she’s not really sure it ever went away.

Preston lets out a heavy sigh. “Marcy…”

“No, how do we know she’s not just going to kill us as soon as our backs are turned, hmm?” Marcy looks at Claudia with wild, sleep deprived eyes and Claudia has to hold back a laugh. As if they had anything worth killing them for. Instead, she takes a deep breath and releases it in a sigh of her own.

“If I’m lying, then you can have the honor of shooting me in the face yourself. How ‘bout that?” Marcy is looking at her like she’s seriously contemplating just doing that now.

“Great,” Sturges intercepts before more venom can be spit, “What if you take point, and we’ll see if this Sanctuary is all it’s cracked up to be?”

Claudia would rather do anything else than that, but she’s short of friends in this wasteland, and she might be able to get some information out of them if she helps them out a little bit more. 

“Sounds good to me.”

-+-

Codsworth was happy to see new, (mostly) friendly people, at least. He was also more than happy to help the troupe clear out one of the houses to bunker down for the night and finding things that Sturges could scrap.

The poor remains of the power armor sit off near one of the houses. She has no more use for it, and if she never gets into one of those things again, it’ll still be too soon. 

Garbage is being toted out of the house across from Claudia’s old one. Marcy’s husband, Jun, rolls out an old barrel and gets a small fire going inside. Sturges and Codsworth are chatting quietly, but it’s more like Codsworth is talking the poor man’s ear off with his interaction-deprived rattling. Claudia contemplates saving him from the Handy’s lunacies but figures that would require too much energy that she doesn’t have to spare.

Preston walks back to the rest of the group from his patrol of the neighborhood. He comes to stand next to Claudia who has placed herself on the sidewalk, trying to stay out of the others’ way.

“Besides a couple radroaches, this place is quiet,” he says. Claudia nods in acknowledgement. “Damn lucky we got to this place when we did,” he says more to himself than anything.

“Well, I’m glad.” Preston looks over to her.

“You said you had come from here when we met. What were you doing this far north?” he asks. She figures now is as good a time as any to try and get some information from these people. 

“I’m new to the area.”  _ That’s not a total lie,  _ she thinks. “And I’m looking for someone who’s gone missing. Trail led me here.” She shrugs. It was the truth, albeit not a detailed one, but she always found those to be much easier to keep up with than full out lies.

Preston hums. “Sorry to hear that.” He doesn’t press for more information after that. Her sob story is probably no different than that of any other Wastelander’s, she figures. “I wish I could tell you better news, but people going missing isn’t too uncommon in these parts.” His hand pushes his hat askew when he runs a hand through his tightly cropped curls. “But if I can help in anyway, you let me know.”

Claudia gives him a look. “Really?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gets a look at her bewildered expression. “That’s what the Minutemen do,” he says with a hint of pride before his face falls again, “Or, at least what they used to do.”

Overlooking that last remark, she turns fully to face him. “Would you happen to know where one might go to start searching, then?”

“The great, green jewel of the Commonwealth,” a voice rasps from the side. Claudia has to stop herself from jumping. She has the feeling that others would appreciate that old woman wearing a bell, or something, to give some sort of warning of her presence.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Preston agrees.

“What’s the jewel of the Commonwealth?” Claudia asks.

“Diamond City,” Preston answers, “Biggest settlement in the Commonwealth. Not too bad of a place to go looking for a missing person around here, either.”

“You’ll find answers there, kid. I seen it.” Claudia refrains from rolling her eyes. This whole mystic shtick this lady’s got going on has gotten real old real fast.

“Do know how I might get there?”

“Yeah, here, I’ll mark it on your map,” Preston says. She hands over her pip-boy and he puts in the coordinates. “So, you from a vault, or something?” he asks. “Never heard of a Vault 111.”

Claudia looks down at her beaten up vault suit. “Found this over by the old vault on the hill,” she gestures behind her with a nod. “My old clothes were a little less than ideal.” Preston nods, accepting another one of her half-truths, and hands her back the pip-boy.

“I get you. But, a friendly word of advice, I’d find something to cover it up with if I were you. It kind of makes you stick out like a glowing feral.” 

Claudia understands about half of what he just said, but nods anyway. She looks at her map and sees where Preston marked. It’s quite a hike, but if it means that she can get closer to finding Shaun, that’s the least of her complaints.

“Thanks,” she says to the two. Dogmeat trots up to her, nosing the hand that hangs at her side. “Ready to go, boy?” she asks him.

“Well hold on a minute. There’s only a couple hours of daylight left, how ‘bout you rest out here and head out in the morning. That deathclaw really did a number on the power armor, and I can’t imagine you feel much better.” He isn’t wrong. Her entire body aches and at least she would be safer here than out there. But sleeping is the last thing on her mind, and she’d quite frankly rather set herself on fire than stay another night in this neighborhood.

“No, that’s quite alright,” she waves away his concern with a stiff smile, “I should get going before I burn any more daylight.” She adjusts the straps of her pack that were digging into a sore spot on her shoulder. Preston looks like he’s about to protest again, but Claudia waves a small goodbye and turns away before he can.

Dogmeat trots a little bit ahead of her and the two of them leave Sanctuary behind. She feels eyes on the back of her head as they do so.

The sounds of the settlers fades away the farther she gets until it’s just the sound of her feet, Dogmeat’s paws against the ground, and the wind to fill up the silence.

Dogmeat sniff the corpses of some zombie-looking dog and of a man just beyond the bridge. Claudia thinks about what Preston said earlier about her vault suit, and looks down at the body with a grimace. The corpse  _ does _ have clothes, she notes, and she has the feeling that she’s not going to get much better of an opportunity for a while. While there is still sunlight, there’s already a slight nip in the air, and she guesses that she’s going to be short of freezing her ass off once night comes. She lifts her foot and rolls the body over so it lays on its back rather than the front. It has gone stiff, and Claudia can only guess at how long it’s been sitting out here in the sun. But the jacket on it doesn’t seem to be damaged, nor be covered in questionable substances. She heaves a heavy, gravely sigh, retreats into her mind, and crouches down and begins stripping off the jacket.

The smell hits her only occasionally when the wind blows just right, but she’s so far behind the walls constructed in her mind that she barely notices it. After wrangling the corpse for far longer than she would ever want to, the jacket is finally free. She holds it up. Her initial examination holds as she can’t see anything wrong with it. As a plus, it barely smells like carrion. She counts her blessings where she can.

Swinging the jacket on and buttoning it up with the few buttons it has left, it covers down to just above her knees. Most of the obnoxious blue of the vault suit is covered up instead by the nondescript brown jacket. It has pockets roughly sewn in on the inside, though the outer ones are riddled with holes. Claudia reaches into her bag and places what little ammo she has left and stores in the inner pockets.

She left the laser musket back with Preston and them. It was out of ammo and she was completely useless with it anyways. There’s maybe a full magazine of ammo for the 10 mm left over, and she keeps that at the forefront of her mind. She holsters the gun in her belt and takes out the baton instead. No point in getting into a fire fight with nothing to fire back with.

Dogmeat waits patiently up the road a bit and Claudia moves to join him.

They make their way back into Concord. It’s much quieter now than it was earlier in the day. The bodies of the raiders are still strewn about and Claudia can see the dead deathclaw up at the end of the road. Sore-ridden crows pick the scene over, but scatter when the two of them approach. Dogmeat weaves around the area, nose never taking a break. Claudia peeks into the broken window of a hardware store. She’s about to go inside, see if there’s anything useful, when Dogmeat lets out a bark. It makes her jump and spin around to face him. He’s standing near one of the dead raiders doing a little happy dance.

Claudia walks over to see what’s got his attention. He gives a woof of encouragement. 

“What is it?” she asks, crouching down to his level. He looks at her, looks down at the body to push it with his nose, then looks back up at her again. 

She takes the hint and starts inspecting it. Looting the corpse leaves a bad taste in her mouth, but she’s short on supplies.

_ Not like they’re going to need them now. _

She manages to find a box of ammo to a caliber of a gun that she doesn’t have, a stimpak, and a wrapped up bundle of what appears to be jerky. A sniff confirms that it is indeed dried meat.

Claudia looks around the town at the rest of the remains and then to the sky. The sun is as low as it’s going to get without disappearing completely. She rubs her cold hands together in reservation, and gets to work scavenging.

* * *

She surprises him when she breaks off from the rest of the group. Not the move that he would’ve seen her making, but he’s gotten the impression by now that Princess is just full of surprises.

Deacon managed to catch a bit of the conversation she had with a few of them (that old lady tends to talk with her whole mouth), giving him an inkling of an idea about her future movements.

We watches with a small bit of distaste as she starts looting the bodies back in town. But, hey, scavvers can’t be choosers. And he’s certainly the last person who can judge. 

It’s practically nightfall by the time she reaches the end of town. She looks out into the open wastes, the gears turning in her head again, before she turns back and walks through the rubble of the hardware store.

In the darkness, Deacon is in his element. He slips unnoticed into town and routes his way to one of the old houses sitting offshoot from where she’s decided to hole up for the night. He takes his spot on the upper level, pulls the only sittable chair left in the house to the corner where he can look out the window, and watches as she goes up stairs out of his direct line of sight.

Deacon sits his rifle against his legs and lights a cigarette, hand blocking the red embers from view.

* * *

Claudia doesn’t sleep at all that night. Even with Dogmeat with her, she can’t turn her brain off for a single moment to even think about going to sleep. She’s sitting curled up on the floor, her back shoved in the corner of the room. Dogmeat is stationed next to her and she unabashedly leeches as much body heat as she can from him. He doesn’t seem to mind. The darkness chases away the sun quicker than she’d like, painting the world in shadows.

With nothing to keep her mind busy, the cotton starts filing in again. She can feel herself falling into that comfortable, predictable state of auto-pilot. Usually, she would welcome the reprieve of consciousness, but the idea of her mind being otherwise occupied while she’s in unsafe territory makes her do everything she can to stay present. 

Her hand goes down to Dogmeat, burrowing her fingers in his thick fur. If she closes her eyes (which she won’t chance), she can almost imagine it’s Watcher sitting next to her. She counts her breathes, trying to take in air as deep as she can and ignore the smell of decay as best she can.

With the last remaining dredges of sunlight quickly fading, she reaches into her bag. She pulls out the folded picture.

It now has a horizontal crease in the middle of it, a line separating Nate’s head from her’s. 

His hair is longer here. She remembers how long it would get before he was shipped off to Anchorage. He’d always complain about it.

_ “You can always just cut it off,”  _ she’d remind him,  _ “it’s just hair, it will grow back.” _

_ “What, and get rid of this luxurious mane? I think you just want to be the one all the hair glory,”  _ he’d tease. The memory brings the ghost of a smile to her face. Claudia did use to have long hair, it reached down to her waist, and it’s that length in the picture. She lopped it all off shortly after Shaun was born, not wanting to deal with two feet of hair and a newborn at the same time. It sits just above her shoulders now.

Claudia stares into the picture until it’s too dark to see anything. The cold she feels has little to do with the weather. She folds it back up and places it securely in its spot once more.

She lays her head back on the wall behind her and tries to listen for Nate’s humming amongst the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm trying to get through all this exposition as painlessly as i can before we get to the meat of the story.
> 
> meetings will happen in the next chapter i pinky promise.


	4. [4]

_ Diamond City, _ she scoffs,  _ Clever _ .

She didn’t know what she expected, but Fenway Park being turned into a little shanty town was not one of them. But after everything she’s seen so far, Claudia’s not sure she has the capacity to be surprised anymore.

She left Concord once there was just enough daylight to see, and hadn’t stopped till she got to where she stands now. It was late in the afternoon now, and a lot of that has to do with Dogmeat leading the way for the most part. Claudia has the feeling that she would have run into a lot more trouble if she didn’t have this dog to help her.

“...I live here!” breaks through her reverie. A dark haired woman growls at the intercom. She looks up at Claudia as she approaches. “Psst, hey!” she whisper yells, “You want into Diamond City right?” Claudia nods to which the woman replies with a nod of her own. “Play along… Oh, what was that? You’re a trader up from Quincy? And you have enough supplies to keep the general store for a whole month? Huh!” She leans in closer to the intercom. “You hear that? You wanna let us in, or do you want to be the one to explain to crazy Myrna why she’s missing out on all this product.”

A sigh crackles through the speaker. “Alright, alright, Piper, no need to make it personal. Jeez…” The intercom turns off and the giant gate at the entrance to the stadium begins to lift. The woman turns to Claudia.

“Better hurry on in before he catches onto the bluff,” and she turns and walks through the now opened entrance.

A fat, red-faced man is waiting just inside and starts tearing into the dark haired woman as soon as he sees her.

Claudia makes her own entrance then, slipping past them unnoticed. She steps between a couple of armored guards by the steps to the stadium.

The evening light casts heavy shadows across the city, making its lights stand out like a miniature, neon, starlit sky. There are people milling about, doing mundane, everyday things. It’s a refreshing change of pace that these people aren’t immediately shooting her on sight. Seeing all of these people doing simple  _ people _ things makes an unwarranted wave of nostalgia hit her. 

_ Well. At least they made good use of the space. _ Claudia stands off to the side, looking out into the city before she goes and gets herself lost.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that ma’am,” a voice says from behind her. The red-faced man is approaching her. “I hope you don’t let rabble like that taint your impression of this great city.” Claudia gives a tight-lipped smile.

“That’s alright.”

“You must be new around here!” he announces in the faux jolly way that so many politicians in the past used to. “I am Mayor McDonough. Let me be the first to welcome you to Diamond City. A great place to settle down, raise your family. Spend your money.”

_ Ah, Christ. Not even atomic annihilation and a couple centuries will get rid of guys like this. _

“Thanks,” she replies, wishing nothing more than for this conversation to be over.

“So, what brings you to our fine city?”  _ Oh for fuck’s sake. _

“I’ve lost something,” she retorts shortly.

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. Are you here to see Detective Valentine, then?”

“Detective Valentine?”

“Why, of course! There’s not much that will stay hidden, so long as Detective Nick Valentine is on the case,” he gives a chuckle. Claudia doesn’t know what’s so funny.

“Is he here? In Diamond City, I mean.”

“Just past the markets.” Claudia doesn’t spare the mayor another glance and heads down the stairs. “Oh, uh, have a good day, and enjoy your visit!”

The market is isn’t what she would call  _ bustling _ , per say, but there is still more people here than she’s seen since the bomb fell. The guards wandering the space look like apocalyptic umpires.

Claudia could see herself wandering the city for longer than she has time, accounting for all of the little alleyways that it’s made up of, but eventually her wandering takes her to the right one. It’s quickly getting darker and, down the alley a bit, she can see a pink neon sign of a heart and the words  _ Valentine Detective Agency _ . 

She takes a deep breath, walking down to the door, enters the office.

-+-

By the time she’s finished telling her story, she’s trembling with rage so much that she’s practically vibrating off of the chair. Nick is sitting with his elbows on the desk, fingers steepled in front of him. She can hear his processors running through the information she’s given him.

“Well,” he says after a moment’s silence, “there are several groups out in the Commonwealth that take people. Raiders, Gunners, Super Mutants. And then there’s, ya know, the Institute.”

“The one wasn’t dressed like any raider I’ve seen,” Claudia says, “She was in some sort of cleanroom suit, or something.” She’s quiet for another moment, thinking back on all of the things that she’s heard about the shadowy organization. “Do you think it  _ could _ be the Institute?” she asks in a quiet voice.

“The Institute  _ is _ known for going through old pre-war places to scavenge from, so an unopened, pre-war vault isn’t too out of their orbit. Neither is kidnapping, for that matter. But what I’m stuck on is what they could want with an infant?”

Claudia picks at her fingers until they bleed, waiting for Nick to give her anything to go off of.

“This man you said came up to you, did you remember enough to describe him?”

She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget.

“Bald,” she starts, swallowing down her bubbling hatred, “wore a black leather jacket. Had a big scar across his face,” she mimes on her own where it was on her husband’s murderer.

Ellie and Nick perk up at the same time, giving each other a glance.

“You didn’t happen to hear the name, Kellogg, by any chance?” Nick asks, strangely intense.

Claudia shakes her head. “Do you think he’s the one who did it?”

“Bald, scarred, known for doing dangerous mercenary work but no one knows who his employer is,” Ellie lists off, “That matches the description we have on file. It’s very possible.”

“Where is he?” Claudia implores, just short of pleading. Now that she has a name, she feels hope for the first time since she’s entered the Wasteland.

“Now, hold on a moment,” Nick stops her, “Kellogg is a dangerous guy, there’s a reason why he’s good at what he does. It’s going to take some digging to try and sniff him out.”

“How long will that take?” Claudia asks impatiently.

“It’ll be a few days, I’ve got some things to look into if we’re going to get any further with this. Say about a week, and we’ll meet back here to discuss our next steps.” She gapes at him incredulously.

“A week?!” she all but shrieks, “I don’t have a week! My  _ son _ doesn’t have a week! He’s out there in who-knows-what with who-knows-who, and you’re telling me I have to wait a  _ week _ just to get started even though we already have a lead?” She doesn’t know she’s stood up from her seat until Nick is standing as well, trying to usher her back down.

“It’s less than ideal, I know, but trust me that it’s going to go a lot smoother if we take this one step at a time.” Claudia falls back into her seat and holds her head in her hands. “You won’t be able to help your son if you get killed because of a situation that could’ve been avoided with the right preparations.” Nick gets up and walks around the desk to lay a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find him, Mrs. McGowan.”

Claudia heaves a sigh, running her hands through her hair and looking up at Nick. She nods and he pats her shoulder before taking his hand back.

As she steps out of Nick’s office and into the brisk night, she feels focused and irritated. She has a name now, one she can put to the face that was responsible for Nate’s death, but she can’t do anything about it. She feels helpless and it pisses her off to no end. 

The week that she’s going to have to sit and stew through feels like an eternity. She has few friends in the Wasteland, and even less of a clue about the place itself. There’s Preston, she guesses. He did offer help.  _ What the hell’s a single Minuteman going to do to track down a professional killer? _ She knows Nick can help, is helping, and that he’s kept around here because he’s good at his job. But sitting around with no other options makes Claudia feel a lot like her teeth are being pulled out one by one. She cracks her knuckles. She’s going to have to make some connections, but she’s going to have to do it on the down low. If the Institute is as big and bad as everyone makes it out to be, she’s got the feeling that drawing attention to her issue is going to exacerbate it.

_ There are merchants here, _ she thinks,  _ they’d need to have contacts to move goods around the Commonwealth. Traders probably get around. They would have a better scope on the happenings around here. _

She stands outside of Nick’s, trying to come up with  _ some  _ kind of plan. A conversation floats down the alleyway to her, she’s only able to make out bits and pieces.

“I’m telling you, man, they’re real! The Railroad are the  _ only _ ones bringing the fight to Institute!” one of the men say. The other one lets out a loud  _ shh! _

“Keep your voice down, will ya? You want the whole damn city to hear you? Besides, that sounds like a crock of shit, anyway.”

“Nah, nah, they’re real! I heard Phyllis and them talking about it, said that they were going to join up. Something about  _ following the Freedom Trail _ .” The other man scoffs.

“Right. And how many dirty wastelanders did Phyllis have before this conversation?” The first man slugs the other in the arm and with that, they drop the topic.

_ The Railroad _ , Claudia rolls around in her mind. She keeps it as something to look into later. She doesn’t have time to wait a week for information that may or may not lead her anywhere, and if she has to, she’ll look into other places for the help she needs. The longer Shaun’s out there, the longer he could be in danger.

Claudia already failed Nate. She’ll die before she fails her son as well.

-+-

The only thing open at this time of night is the inn, Dugout Inn, if the fluorescents have anything to say about it. It’s a busy time of night; everyone’s shop is closed and there isn’t much else to do but get a drink. Claudia enters the inn hoping that that there’s food here as well.

It smells of old plaster and stale booze and there is a two headed cow mounted on the wall, but other than that, there’s not much that sticks out to her. A radio crows somewhere in the room, but it’s drowned out by the light chatter of the people around it. Booming laughter comes from a man behind the bar. No one seems to mind Dogmeat trotting in after her.

Claudia slinks into the main bar. She feels oddly exposed under these overhead lights. She sidles up to an empty spot on the bar.  _ This is how people order in one of these places, right? _ Claudia doesn’t drink, never has, so the delicate machinations of a bar elude her. She must have done something right, however, because the bodacious man from behind the bar comes up to her.

“Ah, new face, yes? What can I get for lady?” he rolls over a thick accent.

“What do you have?”

“We have usual booze, beer, vodka, vhatever. But we also have Bobrov’s Best Moonshine. Best and strongest moonshine you find, brewed here in Dugout,” he announces proudly. Claudia hums and gives what she hopes is a placating smile.

“Impressive,” she begins, “Do you also sell food here?”

“Yes, of course!” He points back behind him where there are dusty boxes stocked on a shelf against the wall. Claudia does a quick scan.

“Ehm, how much for the Dandy Boys?” she asks, going to her pack to rifle around for some bills she swiped from the hardware store.

“Seven caps.” She pauses, looks up at him.

“Pardon me?”

“Seven caps.”

“Caps?” she asks dumbly.

“Yes? Bottle caps, no?” The barkeep starts giving her an odd look.

“Yes. Right. Well, I will have to pass. But thank you, anyways.” She internalizes a sigh, turning away from the bar trying to come up with some way to make some  _ caps _ .

“That’s alright,” a deep voice says from beside her. There’s a clattering on the bar top as a handful of bottle caps hit it. Claudia stops and looks at the stranger. He’s leaning on the bar with one elbow, body facing Claudia. He’s wearing one of those umpire vests that she’s noticed the guards wearing.

The man behind the bar swipes the caps up before reaching behind him and then placing the box of Dandy Boy apples on the bar in front of the guard. The guard pushes the box over to Claudia.

“Thanks, but I’m not going to be able to pay you back,” she says, leaving the apples on the bar. The guard lazely waves her concern off.

“Don’t you worry ‘bout it, doll. We’ve all been there.” He nudges the box closer to her. She pauses for a moment, trying to get a read on the man. He’s not being pushy (yet, she notes), and he’s not so close that she feels cornered. His posture is open, his hands where she can see them, and he’s slightly leaning out of her space. But the shades on his face are making it difficult to get a good assessment on him.

Claudia picks up the box, nodding another small thanks. She has the thought to leave right before he talks again.

“So, you new around the Commonwealth?” he asks casually.

“I guess,” she mumbles. She’s really got to flesh out a better cover story.

“You guess, huh? Don’t get a lot from outside the ‘wealth here. Do they not use caps where you’re from?”

“You could say that.”

“Do all outsiders evade questions like you?”

“Do all Diamond City guards wear sunglasses at night?”

He gives her a side-mouthed smirk.

“You got a place to stay tonight?”  _ And there it is _ , she thinks.

“Not interested.” She breaks off from the bar and starts off to the door.

“Now, wait a minute.” He holds his arm out in front of her, barring her from going any further. Dogmeat gets up from where he sat down behind her, attention now centered in on the man. Her glare holds death as she shoots it at his arm and then up to where she guess are his eyes from behind his shades. He quickly takes his arm back like she’s going to bite it off. Probably will if push comes to shove. Instead, he holds his hands up slightly in a surrender. “Here, just- hold on.” The guard reaches into his front pocket, Claudia’s and Dogmeat’s eyes hyper aware of every movement he does now, and pulls out another handful of bottle caps. He holds them out to her. “That guy sitting by the ice cooler,” he nods to a spot behind Claudia, “he’s the innkeeper, ask him for a room for the night.”

Claudia doesn’t make a move to take the caps and the stranger doesn’t make a move to take them back. The battle of wills that they seem to have gotten themselves locked in lasts but a moment as Claudia slowly reaches for his hand and take the offered caps.

“Thanks,” she mutters. The guard gives her another small half-mouthed smile. He starts off towards the door.

“Don’t mention it. And enjoy your visit to the great, green jewel!” He gives her a small two-fingered salute as he saunters away and out of the inn. Claudia leans backwards, watching him disappear into the hallway and out into the city.

She pauses for a moment, looking at the caps in her hand. They’re literally just bottle caps, how could there be any value in these to be used as currency? Then again, she remembers, the same could be said about dollar bills. Shooting another look down the hallway as if the guard is going to be there watching her, or something, she meanders over to the guy by the ice cooler. He’s reading a newspaper and glances up at her as she approaches.

“You need room?” he asks. She nods and holds out the caps. The man takes them, counts out about half of them, and gives the rest back. “Room two, just across hallway.”

Dogmeat follows after Claudia as she walks through the door with the big ‘2’ painted on the front of it. She closes the door after her canine companion.

It’s more well taken care of than she assumed it would be. Though, after sitting up all night in some dusty corner of a dilapidated store, there’s not much that would exceed her expectations. There’s a slightly busted bed frame with a bare mattress on top, a well used chair, and a small dresser with a little lamp sitting on it. The bed frame squeaks as she sits down on the mattress. She takes her bag from her back and starts trying to organize it better. She had picked up little things here and there on her journey to Diamond City, and she needed to start getting some semblance of order into her life.

And then comes the issue of bottle caps. She still had some left over from renting the room ( _ Why would he give me more than I needed? _ ), so she wasn’t left completely without. Doesn’t change the fact that she’s going to need to do something about that soon.

Getting her bag together doesn’t take long, and she hauls it up on to the mattress with her, placing it closest to the wall. She doesn’t feel like she can totally let her guard down (that’s probably something that she should just say goodbye to now, if she’s being honest with herself), but there is a bit of reprieve as she sits within four walls with Dogmeat at her side. Her legs are aching still from the harrowing hike over the river, and she hadn’t realized how dog tired she is until now. Dogmeat has claimed a spot on the floor alongside the bed, already curled up. 

“I think you got the right idea there, bud,” she says quietly. She reaches over to the lamp on the dresser when something catches her eye. It’s a holotape, placed inconspicuously on the dresser. She picks it up, and upon further inspection, there is written along its broad edge, in dark letters,  _ Join the Railroad _ .

Claudia flips the holotape around in her hands. This is the second time in a night that she’s heard mention of the Railroad.  _ They must be some hotshots around the Commonwealth, or something _ . Claudia flips open her pip-boy and loads in tape. It crackles quietly before a voice drawls out.

_ “Wake up, Commonwealth…” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drink every time the word 'bar' is used amiright ladies
> 
> jk don't you'll probably have to go to the hospital


	5. [5]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuse for why it took me so long to finally write and upload this other than who i am as a person.
> 
> i'm not happy with this chapter and it felt like clawing through a brick wall writing it, but i made a playlist for this fic to try and make up for it (and also bc i have no self control).
> 
> it's here on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1p6MuZKJNbfit48tJ5xwbY?si=ApxD60xyRMm0PARVM7oDkQ) or on [playmoss](https://playmoss.com/en/burningcas/playlist/blunt-thou-the-lion-s-paws).
> 
> ALSO, i found out that 8tracks isn't a thing anymore and that _totally_ didn't make me rlly sad pshhh.  
> so it's on spotify instead. ya know.

Desdemona makes eye contact with Deacon as soon as he steps foot into HQ. He saunters in without a care in the world, swipes a Nuka Cherry from one of the shelves, and plops himself down in a chair like he owns the place. The artificial fruit flavor burns a little on the way down.

Desdemona points her head to the backroom, giving Deacon an unspoken order. He sighs, mourning the moment’s rest he’s missing out on, and follows after her. He throws back the cola again as he trods into the room. Des, Carrington, and PAM are waiting for him.

“So?” Des asks.

Deacon leans a shoulder on the wall, crossing his ankles. He gives a single shoulder shrug.

“Institute wasn’t there, at least not on site.”

“But…?” Carrington prods.

“Our neighborhood ghost town isn’t as ghosty as we thought.” He takes another drink.

The past few days of trailing the vault dweller answered some questions, but raised a hell of a lot more. She kept her cards so close to her that it impressed him, and if he hadn’t gone down into Vault 111 himself, he would still be betting on the theory that she was an Institute plant. His first contact with her in Diamond City was risky, but Deacon thought it paid off in the end. Since then, she’s stuck to pretty much the same routine. She left Diamond City, wandered a little ways into old Boston until she lost her nerve, went back to that old neighborhood, and has been doing chores for the Minuteman in charge there. It has only been a couple times she’s deviated from this, once to help out a few Brotherhood schmucks and when she traveled back to Diamond City for a short while.

Which, he found interesting, was to visit good ol’ Nicky. She didn’t seem all too happy when she left his place.

Deacon didn’t think she’d take to the Wasteland as well as she has. If he didn’t see her metaphorical resurrection from the vault himself, he’d pin her off as a born and raised wastelander. He’s not sure if he should be concerned about that or not. 

Like watching a baby bird take its first flight and leave the nest, Deacon watched her start to find her groove. It’s rare that he feels the need to interfere anymore, other than leaving heavy handed hints of the Railroad around in her path.

There are three things that Deacon uses to help predict someone: caps, belief, and ego.

From his little one-on-one with her back in DC he’s pretty confident he’s started to get those filled in for her. One: he’s learned that she’s broke. The fact that she also has no gauge for how many caps is too little or too much for something also speaks volumes ( _ seven caps for a box of Dandy Boy apples you dug up out of the trash, Vadim? Really? _ ). Two: he’s learned that she’s skeptical, cautious, even. She had been hesitant to take his caps, instead of blindly accepting shit from strangers. That almost made him a little proud. And then comes her ego. She showed her hand a bit when she instantly flat out rejected his unintentional proposition, but, hey, happy accidents, right?

So, the info that he’s gathered so far on his new favorite vaultie is that she’s a shrewd, volatile recluse with a huge chip on her shoulder and an ability (and willingness) to adapt to dangerous situations.

Deacon doesn’t like putting expectations on the future, ‘cause that’ll just lead straight to disappointment, but he can’t help that nibbling feeling that little miss vaultie might just be the Railroad’s ticket to getting back on their feet. Hell, if only a handful of the Railroad had half the amount of focus and gusto she’s shown, this fight would be in the bag. 

But that all hinges on whether or not she actually decides to find them.

Deacon fills them in on the cliffnotes version of events, omitting other details until further notice.

“How do you know for sure that she’s not working with the Institute?” Desdemona asks.

“I don’t. But word on the block is that she’s looking for… something, and so far, she’s been hounding for info on the Institute. She’s got friends, connections, scattered through the ‘wealth, and she’s doing a good job of keeping it quiet. Hell, given some more time, I’d say she’d be able to come up with something that could overshadow the Railroad.”

“So what are you suggesting, then?”

“Nothing. All I’m saying is that she’s a dangerous enemy to have, and if I had to bet, an even more powerful ally.”

Deacon watches as Carrington and Des give silent glances to each other. The second in command doesn’t look too happy with what he thinks the chief is going to say, but he never gets the opportunity to voice his concerns.

“Keep an eye on her,” Des tells him, “Just because she’s hunting the Institute doesn’t mean that she’s going to fight for the synths as well.”

“Gotchya.” He pushes off from the wall, downs the last bit of his cola, and turns to leave the room.

“And, Deacon.” He stops. “There's nothing done beyond that until we can be sure she’s not with the Institute, understand?”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” he says as he gives a little salute and ambles out.

\----------

As soon as Dogmeat is through the gate, Claudia is slamming it closed behind her. She freezes as she listens through the wood for any indication that her pursuers are still after her. Her chest heaves through raspy breaths, adrenaline making her feel like she’s as explosive as a live wire. Sweat beads down her face and makes her hands clammy, forcing her to maintain a death grip on her gun.

When she doesn’t hear the pounding footsteps behind her, she steps away from the gate and directs her attention to the new area. Drifters spare her a small glance here and there, but other than that, she doesn’t seem to have attracted too much attention to herself. Feeling like she’s not in any more immediate danger than usual, she holsters her pistol. Her legs feel like jelly as they take her deeper into Goodneighbor.

She is barely able to take a breath before a gruff voice is trying to get her attention. She resists the temptation to start screaming.

A rough looking man walks up to her, stopping her from gaining anymore ground. Claudia says nothing as he sizes her up.

“You new ‘round here?” he says, tongue rolling over a thick accent. She remains silent. “You should know that you can’t go walkin’ ‘round Goodneighbor without insurance.” He points a finger towards her. “So if you know what’s good for ya, you’ll pay up. Or accidents are gonna start happenin’ to ya. Big. Bloody. Accidents.”

Now, Claudia doesn’t quite have a full grasp on the general attitude of law and order in the Commonwealth, but she is fully pondering whether or not people would care if she shoots this guy here in the middle of their town.

“Woah, woah, woah,” a distant voice calls out from down the alley. Claudia groans inwardly.

_ Great now there’s two of them. _

“Come on, Finn, what’s the deal? You know that if someone new walks through those gates, they’re a guest.” A duster clad ghoul steps into view. He walks over to the man, looks over to Claudia, and gives a quick wink in her direction before returning his attention back to Finn.

She hears a low scoff come from the man. “You’re gettin’ soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over you like this and soon Goodneighbor’s gonna find itself with a new mayor.” The ghoul chuckles and it sends a cold shiver down Claudia's spine.

“Hey,” Hancock says, “come ‘ere, I need to tell you something.” Finn gives him a wary look but doesn’t have time to do much else before the ghoul produces a knife from seemingly nowhere and guts him right there in the street. 

Finn falls to the ground with a gurgle as Hancock wipes his combat knife on his pant leg, looking down to the quickly dying man. “Now why’d you have to go an’ say that, huh? Breakin’ my heart over here.” He hides the knife away again and turns his attention to Claudia who has been silent the entire exchange.

He starts talking to her, but she can’t hear a damn thing he’s saying. She’s exhausted, hungry, and is really fed up with the smell of gunpowder, blood, and piss. Right now, Claudia could give a rat’s ass if he’s threatening her or welcoming her.

He’s quiet for a moment before she realizes he’s stopped talking and is probably waiting for a reply to some question he’s asked. 

“You got a place to crash?” she asks instead. A look of understanding lights up the mayor’s eyes briefly as he takes her demeanor in stride and gives her a cockeyed smile.

“Hotel Rexford, just ‘round the corner,” he rasps.

“Thanks,” Claudia murmurs as she steps over Finn’s body without a second glance.

\----------

It took her longer than he thought it would to venture on out this far into the city. At first, Deacon thought that she was following the Freedom Trail and had to stop himself from doing a little happy dance, but she didn’t even notice the red lines literally leading her directly to HQ, and instead headed east.

He took a chance guessing she was going to Goodneighbor, so he drifted into the town before her and waited for her arrival.

When time started to pass and she  _ still _ hadn’t shown up, he was starting to get worried that maybe he lost her trail or she got nicked on her way over, until she blasted through the gates out of breath and wildeyed.

_ Must have run into the super mutants. _ He bit back a grin.

He stationed himself against the wall between the two shops at the front of the town, so he got a first row seat to the little show Hancock put on for her. The man always was a bit dramatic.

She went and rented a room at the Rexford immediately afterwards, and has not been seen since. 

At first he thought she dipped when he wasn’t looking, however doubtful that would be, but the key to the room that she rented was still gone from the hook behind the front desk when he meandered inside. Then he thought that something happened to her, but there had been no commotion to make that idea totally logical.

It’s been going on almost a full 24 hours with no sighting of her when Deacon decides to slip up the stairs and down the hallway to her room. When he tries it, he finds the door locked. He presses his ear to the door. It’s dead silent inside, no noise that could come from her or that dog that’s following her around. A quick glance down the hallway confirms he’s alone.

He scans the wall (these inn walls are always slightly torn to shit) until he spots a small lift in the wallpaper. It doesn’t offer much, but he can  _ just _ see through a pin sized hole in the wall into the room. He doesn’t see her or the dog, but he can see her bag sitting on foot of the bed. He pulls back and purses his lips.

He’s only supposed to be keeping an eye on her and see if she’s going to hinder the Railroad’s efforts in any way. That’s it. What he  _ should _ do is turn around, leave, and blend in with the rest of the drifters and see where she shows up then. Deacon knows he’s been taking too many risks on this job. He’s gotten close to, if not just outright, broken several of his rules when it comes to a long-term stake out.

He’s interfered not once, but twice now, and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he made face to face contact with her. She’s seen his face, heard his voice. Granted, that was about a week ago, and in a vastly different context, but that still doesn’t lessen the liability that comes with that.

But he’s been good lately, he’s fallen back into his usual routine, he’s kept his distance. He’s inspected her work around the Commonwealth without raising alarm, and he’s dutifully continued peppering Railroad propaganda here and there in her path. He’s been the good little stalker from afar. Out of sight, out of mind.

And he’s about to throw all of that straight into the trash.

He holds back the urge to punch himself in the face and goes over to the door, standing close to it to block his actions from view. He pulls out a couple bobby pins and starts getting to work on the lock. It’s not a complex one and it’s pretty busted so it unlocks without much fuss.

He opens the door just a crack, confirming that the room is empty. His brows furrow and he opens the door just enough to walk into the room. His eyes are on the bag sitting on the bed and he barely takes a full two steps inside when the door is slammed shut behind him and the barrel of a gun is shoved in the middle of his back.

“Who the fuck are you?” a low voice asks behind him.

_ Oh, damn it all. _

Deacon sees the dog circle around to his side out of the corner of his eye. He slowly raises his hands up in surrender.

“W-woah, shit, is this your room? Goddamn, I-I’m sorry, I really gotta get my head on straight,” he puts on a nervous chuckle. She remains silent behind him. “Uh, look, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, if you let me go, I’ll leave and find my own room.”

“Who are you?” she asks again. He grits his teeth and holds back a groan of frustration.

“Me? I-I’m just,” he lets out a dramatic sigh, “I’m no one,” he whispers. She remains quiet, but he hears her grip on the gun shift.

“Turn around.” Deacon is really wishing he had punched himself in the face. He hesitates a moment too long and she starts to dig the barrel of the gun further into his spine. 

Granted, he’s not in the same disguise as the one he was in Diamond City, him now being in a pair of road leathers and a newsboy cap, but that doesn’t lessen the skin-crawling feeling from the threat of being recognized.

With little to no other options, Deacon turns slowly, keeping his hands raised. 

Her eyes are like steel; sharpened, powerful slivers of metal turned weapon. Two gun barrels aimed at him. They shoot through him just as effectively as the bullets she won’t hesitate to send through his heart. Even with his glasses, she somehow looks him right in the eyes and he has the worrying feeling of being paralyzed. What was that old story about the snake-lady turning people to stone, again?

Her expression is hardened, closed off like a vault door, offering no insight into her inner thoughts. If not for the current situation and her hand gripping the gun with a white-knuckled tension he would probably think she’s bored.

She stands poised, held tightly like a viper ready to strike. She holds the gun steady in front of her, aiming it right at his chest. They stand close enough that Deacon can make out a solitary freckle off-centered on the tip of her nose.

She says nothing for a couple of heartbeats, watching like she was weighing the possibilities of him doing something or not. 

In all reality, he probably could, if not for the dog at his side waiting for any reason to rip into him.

“Wrong room, then?” she says, startling him out of his musings.

He gives a shrug, small enough to not give her the idea that he was threatening her. “Guess so.”

“The fact that you had to pick the lock not give you pause?”

“Thought I left the key in the room. Forgetful sort.”

“Clearly.”

She makes no move to let him go. She’s still pinning him down with her stare, but the eyes of her dog are also burning a hole through the side of his head.

“I should probably go find my room, before my buddy starts to worry,” he says, trying to end this little interaction as soon as possible. Her eyebrows shrug up a miniscule amount in acknowledgement, but she remains still. Deacon can feel the pulse in his neck start to tick faster as she stands there, continuing her silent inspection.

If he somehow wasn’t before, Deacon is now thoroughly regretting every choice he has ever made in his life. 

Just as he thinks he’s going to have to do something drastic, she takes a step back. The gun is lowered slightly, but not all the way off of him. Her shoulders remain tense but her chin lowers slightly. She is still between him and the exit, however.

In an attempt to continue the motions of his escape, Deacon takes a small side step and begins lowering his hands as slow as he can. She still stands there.

Just as he thinks he’s starting to get in the clear, her eyes shoot down to his hands, attracted by the movement. They stay there a moment, taking in the detail of them, when suddenly, a look of alarm lights up her features, and she’s aiming her gun between his eyes.

Deacon’s heart stops dead in his chest.

“ _ You, _ ” she says in a whisper, confusion staining her tone.

Deacon feels the blood run from his face.

Her eyes squint slightly. He can see a flicker of something flash within their depths.

Deacon says nothing, his best poker face staring back at her.

“You’re from Diamond City,” she finally clarifies.

_ Ah, Christ. _

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, lady.”

“You’re that guard from the bar,” she says adamantly. “Why are you following me?” she grinds out, her voice threatening a multitude of painful things if he says the wrong thing.

“Uh, I’m not-”

“Who are you working for?”

_ Welp,  _ Deacon sighs internally,  _ Go big or go home, right? _

He waits a few breaths till he answers, knowing that saying the wrong thing will send him to a quick grave.  _ Not different from any other job. Just a typical Tuesday night. _

“Word on the block is that you’re looking for the Institute.”

Her grip on the handle audibly tightens and the muscles in her jaw bulge as she grits her teeth. Her finger tightens ever so slightly on the trigger.

“I know people who can help,” he rushes to get out. “And I think you can help them out too.”

She remains silent, but he sees her brows come together slightly, betraying her curiosity.

The next words feel like blades slicing up his throat as he speaks them, every nerve and learned instinct screaming, begging for him to stop. His skin crawls with this spoken truth.

“I’m with the Railroad.”


	6. [6]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up over a month later with a starbucks* hey.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were having a party. What gives with my invitation?”

Deacon saunters out from where he was eavesdropping in the hallway, hoping to diffuse the tension between the two women having a stand off in the middle of the room.

Des shoots him a  _ look _ . He sidles up next to her.

“Deacon, I need intel. Who is this?”

“Woah, newsflash, chief, this lady’s kind of a big deal.” Desdemona gives him an unamused look. “She’s been making waves out there in the Commonwealth. She’s been a big contributor to the Minutemen lately. Hell, most of the new settlements popping up are because of her.”

The woman in question stands in the middle of the dusty stone room, narrowing her eyes. 

She seems to have followed his directions well enough. Deacon just hopes that she can keep it up until Des gives the green light.

Admittedly, Deacon’s gut-wrenching confession in Goodneighbor could’ve gone smoother, but, hey, at least no one got shot, and so far she hasn’t given any indication of bouncing out on their little deal yet.

_ Her head tilted to the side a bit.  _

_ “The Railroad?” she asked. _

_ “You heard of it?” She gave a small nod. “Then you know we’ve got a common goal.” _

“So you’re vouching for her?” Desdemona says with a hint of suspicion.

“Yes. Trust me, she’s someone we want on our side.” Deacon’s trying his damndest to get Des to let the vaultie in, the whole scheme relying on her to give the go-ahead. 

“Well. That changes things.” She returns her attention to the vault dweller.

_ “Why are you telling me all this?” She no longer had her gun on him, both of their arms hung freely at their sides. _

_ “Like I said, I think we can be of mutual help to each other.” _

“Why did you go through all this to find us?” Desdemona asks.

“My reasons are my own,” vaultie replies quickly. Deacon internalizes a wince at her bluntess, but by some miracle Des doesn’t seem too off-put by her evasiveness.

“Alright…” she trails off before continuing her interrogation. “Do you know what synths are, at least?”

She nods.

_“But, uh, listen,” Deacon started. “When you do_ _come knocking on our front door, you gotta promise me something.” She remained quiet, watching him intently. “You’ve never seen me before. We’ve never talked. You did what the holotape said and you’ve sought the Railroad out on your own. Deal?”_

_ She keeps quiet for a few beats more. _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Several reasons. They don’t matter. Do we have a deal?” _

“Then you know that the Institute’s playing God, denying their creations’ own humanity. They treat them as nothing more than simple machines, drones that they treat as tools to be used for a purpose and discarded.”

“That sounds like slavery.”

“Exactly.” The intensity in Desdemona’s voice is palpable.

_ Her eyes narrowed, stare intensifying. Deacon’s fingers twitched. _

_ “You don’t even know my name,” she said. _

_ “And you don’t know mine. Even-steven.”  _

_ “This is a lot you’re taking on faith,” she continued, “How do you know I won’t shoot you as soon as your back is turned?” _

_ He gave her a wry smile and little shrug. _

_ “I don’t.” _

“Well, then. I guess I only have one more question for you, the only question that truly matters: Would you sacrifice your life for your fellow man? Even if that man was a synth?”

The vault dweller waits a few beats before answering, her head tilting to the side so slightly that you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t looking for it, and the whole room seems to hold its breath.

“I risk my life for people everyday. Doesn’t matter to me if they’re a synth or not.”

Deacon’s shoulders relax from the tense way he was holding them unknowingly.  _ Atta girl.  _

Des gives a nod, satisfied with her answers. “We’ll start you off with something basic. Think of it as a test.” She looks over her shoulder to him. “ _ Deacon _ will have more information,” she says with intended bite. He smiles cheekily in return. Her eyes remain locked with his, relaying her silent message loud and clear:  _ I know what you’re up to. _

Desdemona leaves, followed shortly by Drummer Boy and eventually Glory as well, after she gives the vaultie one more of her best intimidation look-overs. Soon it’s just the two of them left in the room. He claps his hands together and goes down the steps to meet her.

“Well, now that little reception is over,” he says, trying to break the ice properly.

“What’s the job?” she interrupts.

“Right to it then? Alright. It’s a lowkey job, more than I can do myself, but perfect for the two of us. We both know you can handle yourself just fine under fire, but Des doesn’t. So think of this as initiation.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “That’s all you’re giving me?”

“It’s a bum deal, I know, but strategic ignorance has saved our hides more times than I can count. And if you were some hick from the ‘burbs who didn’t know her ass from a rocket launcher, it’d be a different story. As it is now, though, it’s best just to go along with the chief's plan.” She hums, giving a little nod.

“Reasonable enough.”

“Cool beans. So, we’re going to be heading to Goodneighbor. You go on ahead and I’ll meet you there.” She nods again and promptly turns on her heel and slips out into the darkened hallway. Deacon huffs in amusement.

It’s been a while since Deacon has felt this level of anticipation for a job. Ever since Switchboard, it’s been mostly damage control and trying to reign in the loose ends that blew off into the wind once their old HQ was hit. And he’s put so much of his time into this vault dweller side project that he’s found himself completely invested in its success. A hell of a lot is riding on her working out for them, which sends no small spike of panic through Deacon at the thought.

He’s also really looking forward to watching her work first hand. It was one thing, stopping by the few settlements she got up and running, hearing basic stories of her exploits. But, he finds interesting, it wasn’t very well known that  _ she _ was the General. The only reason that he knows is from being within earshot to hear the Minuteman in Sanctuary call her as such. It’s common knowledge now that the Minutemen are back in business, so, naturally, that means that there’s a new leader, but apparently no one cares enough to think beyond that. Even those living in her settlements talked about her as if she’s just a Minuteman foot soldier. Whether or not she means to keep these aspects from the public consciousness is something that Deacon is chomping at the bit to find out.

It does suggest good things, though. If she can be this careful about what she says and does, then that eliminates some of the risk of her being the one to bring the hammer down on them again. 

\---------

Claudia finds herself lingering around Goodneighbor. She’s not really sure where she’s supposed to be waiting or what she’s supposed to be doing other than waiting. Having to go off of the bare minimum of information leaves her feeling flighty. 

Her and Deacon’s (she made a note to remember the man’s name when it was spoken in the church) first meeting was a real shot in the dark for her. Not only was she having to take the word of a complete stranger (who broke into her room, she might add), but the fact that he  _ knew _ she was looking for the Institute made alarm bells ring in her mind.

The secrecy of her interest in the Institute was one of her top priorities. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Institute is a powerful organization, one that has its blighted claws sunk into everyday life within the Commonwealth. She has little to no power within the Wasteland and she knows that in order to reach the fuckers who took everything from her, she needs clout. She’s done better since first leaving the vault, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still far up shit creek without a paddle. All she really has now are the Minutemen, and that handful of tired farmers are about as helpful to her as a gun with no ammo.

A lot is riding on the Railroad working out. As of now, if she isn’t able to gain their trust to use their resources as well, she has no other options.

A headache starts throbbing up the sides of her head and she has to remind herself to stop clenching her teeth.

Claudia goes and stands to lean back on the brick wall of the Statehouse, out of the way but in view of the gate. She checks her pip-boy. It’s been almost twenty minutes since she left the church and there’s been no sight of Deacon. She lets out an irritated sigh and rubs her face with her hands. Untied sneakers out of the corner of her vision catch her attention.

“Hey, glad you could make it, pal,” a familiar voice calls from her side. She looks up and is greeted by those stupid fucking sunglasses.

“‘Bout time,” she grits out. He gives her a cheeky grin and tics his head to the side, motioning her to follow. 

Claudia pushes off of the wall and follows him past the shops. He leads them to the doors of the Third Rail. She never got a chance to check out the place last time she was here, making this extra unknown keep her hand close to her pistol.

Deacon, seemingly not caring or noticing her tension, walks through the door, and gives a nod to the suited ghoul inside. She hears music and sees light come from around the bend where the stairs disappear to, the ambiance of the establishment becoming more clear as they descend deeper into the building.

The first thing she notices is that it’s hotter down here than it was closer to the door. The air is stuffy and almost humid. There’s a slight haze from cigarettes, accentuated by the dim lighting. A woman croons into a microphone in the corner, most of the light in the room due to the small spot lights trained onto her.

Drifters spare them little more than a basic passing glance as they walk across the floor of the bar. Deacon shepherds them to a spot farther away from the stage. He leans his elbows on the bar and crosses one ankle over the other. Claudia follows along, leaning on her side, facing towards him. 

She doesn’t speak first, instead, waiting for him to start giving some sort of explanation to what she’s supposed to be doing. At one point the bartender Mr. Handy comes over to take their orders. Claudia waves it off and Deacon gets a Nuka Cherry.

They sit in silence some more. Deacon manages to drink about half of the cola before her already thin patience is finally obliterated into dust.

“Is there any particular reason as to why you’ve led me to some glorified drug-den, or is this just part of your typical hazing?” she all but growls.

And the bastard chuckles.

“I was wondering how long you’d go before you’d say something.” 

Claudia swallows heavily, the familiar roiling torrent of rage rising up her throat. 

_ No, _ she reminds herself,  _ You need this to work. Nate is dead. Shaun is gone. You are alone. They took your baby. Nate can’t help you. _

“We’re here to meet a tourist,” Deacon starts explaining under his breath, his voice giving her mind something else to focus on. Claudia can barely hear him over the din of the room. “They should have information that we need in order to continue.”

“I’m guessing a tourist is like a runner?” she asks, trying to match his volume.

“Eh, kinda. Someone who does the odd jobs, but leaves the more sensitive and confrontational ones to the heavies.”

“How do we know who that’s supposed to be?”

He shrugs. “We’ll know. Or,  _ I’ll _ know, I guess.” He takes another swig. “But right now, all we gotta do is make our presence known. The tourist will find us.”

Claudia takes in a lungful of the smoggy air, accepting his pseudo-answer for the time being.

“Hey, when the tourist does make contact, you do the talking, alright? And no matter what they say, tell them ‘Mine is in the shop.’ Got it?” Claudia nods. “What are you supposed to say to them?” Deacon confirms with her.

“Mine is in the shop,” she hisses. Deacon gives a placating side-mouthed smile and nods approvingly.

“You got it in the bag, firecracker.”

Claudia rolls her eyes at the moniker and the two fall into silence once more. She scans the dive as best she can without seeming like she’s purposefully looking for someone. She makes a point to keep her gaze more so on the singer and to keep the winding tension she feels slithering up her body from showing on her face. She takes this time to try and observe Deacon, now that she’s having to work alongside him.

He seems completely unbothered. There’s no sign of the same kind of antsiness that Claudia is currently battling with. Then again, she reminds herself, he’s probably done this a hundred times. He holds himself loosely, but keeps a slight hunch in his shoulders to keep him from looking too overconfident amongst the rest of the drifters. His thumb taps the surface of the beat up bar in time to the beat of the jazz music pouring out from crackly, ancient speakers, but even that, she has the suspicion, has been well thought out. A man who thinks five steps ahead before he does anything, every action calculated and weighed for its effectiveness and appropriateness for whatever outcome he wants. Every drink of cola, a disguise for him surveying the room. A sniffle disguising his jump at some small noise startling him from behind. A hand scratching behind his neck, an excuse to turn his head to see a different part of the room for a moment. Mundane things. Shrouding his purpose with the expected. She gets the feeling that trying to get a grasp on Deacon would be about the same experience as reaching out into the fog and trying to get a handful of it.

A man sidles up to the bar behind her. Deacon doesn’t react so neither does she. The man orders a drink and Claudia starts to ignore his existence.

“Magnolia’s really on her top game tonight, ey?” the stranger says. Claudia doesn’t realize he’s talking to her, causing the silence that takes up the space between them to just become awkward. 

Claudia eventually looks over her shoulder to the drifter, confirming that, yes, he is in fact addressing her. She nods and hums in what she hopes sounds like an agreement that will end this conversation before it starts. She should just know by now that that never works.

“Whatcha drinkin’ tonight?” the drifter asks.

“Oh, uh. I’m tapped out, thanks,” she tries waving him off. He nods over his beer. Claudia tries to turn her attention back to the singer. She can feel both the drifter’s and Deacon’s eyes on her.

“That’s some serious heat you’re packing there, darlin’,” the stranger continues, motioning to the pistol strapped to her side. Claudia would have to agree; the gun was a gift from one of the settlers from the co-op, pre-modded with one hell of a kick. “I’m more a shotgun kind of guy myself,” he says, taking her silence and blank stare as an invitation to continue, “but I can appreciate a nice handgun when I see one. You ever have one that shoots those exploding bullets?”

Claudia is quiet for a few beats more, the drifter looking slightly intensely at her, waiting for a reply.

“Mine is… in the shop,” she manages to slowly get out, hoping that it doesn’t sound like too much of a question. The drifter opens his mouth to start talking yet again, but is interrupted by Deacon tossing back the half drink of cola left in the bottle and bringing it down loudly onto the bartop. 

“Well, I don’t know about you, Janey, but I’m beat. Let’s get out of here,” Deacon says. He whips an arm around Claudia’s shoulders before she can catch up and she has to suppress a flinch at the sudden contact. Without any more fanfare, Deacon pulls her away from the bar and leaves the scene as quickly as can be casual.

They trod up the stairs quickly, Deacon taking his arm back as soon as they reach the bend. Claudia fights the impulse to roll her shoulders once the pressure’s taken off of them. 

Deacon shoves his hands in his pockets as they leave the Third Rail, the cool evening air making Claudia realize just how stuffy the place was. 

“I thought we were supposed to meet them there?” she asks him quietly. A muscle in his jaw twitches.  _ Irritation? _

“Yeah. We were.” He starts walking in the direction of the Rexford. “Either they’re not sure we’re with our mutual friends, or they got spooked. We’ll try again tomorrow.” Claudia falls in line with his long strides.

“Is there not a time limit on these things?”

“Ideally?” he sighs as he holds the door to the hotel open for her to walk in, “Yeah. But realistically, there’s a lot of improv that has to happen with these things. Pretty common for people to just not show up, packages that get lost in transit. So we make do.” She sees the twitch in his jaw jump for a split moment as he says this last part.

They drop the conversation at that, walking up to the front desk. The woman recognizes Claudia.

“Back already, huh? That room’s still open if you want it.”

She smiles in return. “Sounds great, thanks.” Claudia takes the caps from a pouch on her utility belt and puts them on the counter with a clatter.

“It’s a bit extra for another person,” the keeper informs her.

Claudia’s face goes slack for a moment until realization hits and she starts shaking her head.

“Oh, uh, no I’m not-- he’s not--”

“I’ll be rentin’ a room for myself,” Deacon interjects, caps already down on the desk. “She snores loud enough to wake the dead.” The keeper chuckles and Claudia levels a glare at the back of his head.

Exchanging the caps for keys, they go upstairs. Their doors on the opposing sides of the hallway from each other. They stand in the middle, meet each other halfway.

“Meet me near the west alley by the statehouse in the morning,” he instructs quietly. She nods and they turn from each other, keys in locks, when a voice from not far where they stand gets their attention nonchalantly.

“Excuse me, do you have a geiger counter?”

The question is just out of place enough to make Claudia pause and turn her head towards it.

A scrawny man, barely more than a boy if she’s being honest, stands with his hands in his pockets, looking expectantly toward her. His face is kind, she supposes, he holds himself casually like he’s talking with an old friend. 

Her eyes cut a glance to Deacon who has also stopped what he was doing, hand still on the doorknob. He says nothing, does nothing, but she can feel his eyes on her again as if he’s saying  _ And…? _

She looks back to the boy.

“Mine’s in the shop.” 

All at once the easy-going mask is gone and is replaced with a seriousness that takes her back slightly, the sudden shift making her mind reel a bit.

“Location’s overrun, opposition onsite. Gen 1s and 2s. Minefield at the front entrance. It’s pretty much all shit.”

Claudia nods her head, trying to absorb the softly spoken information as best she can. “I’d say.”

And just like that, the previous chilled-out demeanor returns as if it had never gone away and he gives her a lopsided smile.

“Well, nice chattin’ with ya,” he says in a normal tone, giving them a little wave. He leaves as quickly as he showed up.

Claudia looks to Deacon but he’s watching the retreating tourist walk down the hallway and down the stairs. He opens his door and holds it open, motioning for her to enter.

She hesitates for only a moment before doing just that. Deacon is right behind her, the door closing behind them, the click of the lock making her spin around.

Deacon rubs his mouth with his hand, the other on his hip. He stands between her and the door.

“Was that the tourist?” she asks.  _ Be pretty bad if it wasn’t _ .

Deacon nods. “Yeah.” He leans a bit to the side to look out the window. “It’s almost sundown, we’ll head out then.”

“That soon?”

“Like he said, sounds like the situation is a bit less than ideal. The sooner we get there, the better our chances of us achieving what we’re setting out to do.”

Claudia nods and Deacon moves from the door. She all but shoots to the door as soon as he’s out of the way. She’s halfway from leaving when his voice stops her.

“We got a few hours, might as well get some rest until then. Don’t want the caps to go to waste,” he suggests, the usual levity that she had gotten used to in his voice returning. He flops down on the dusty mattress and folds his hands behind his head. Claudia leaves and goes to her own room. 

The door shut behind her with a ‘clunk’ and she’s alone in the room with her racing thoughts.

She sits on the mattress, old springs squeaking under her weight. Cold, dying, grey sunlight filters in from the boarded up window to her side and she knows that she’s not getting any sleep tonight.

\---------

They left Goodneighbor quietly and promptly, meeting in the hallway as they left their rooms at the same time. 

The night got considerably more quiet the farther they got from the city. Distant gunfire, the rasping of dead grass against their legs, and the muffled crunching under their steps constant companions in their travel as Deacon leads her through a winding path to their destination. The night is an inky black. A blanket of stars and the waning moon above them just lighting up the world around them. They get to just outside of Cambridge when she speaks, startling the hell out of him.

“So can I get more details now, or are we still relying on strategic ignorance?”

Deacon slows to a stop. They’re shielded slightly by the wreckage of one of the freeways, but other than that, there’s enough open space around them that he’s pretty positive that there won’t be any eavesdroppers hanging around. 

“We’re going to our old HQ to get something that was left behind.” He continues at the sight of a question drawing up her features before she gets a chance to ask it. “It’s under an old Slocum Joe’s, which was pretty fuckin’ sweet before the Institute found us. And if we take the tourist at face value, it changes how we’re gonna do this thing. Did you think he was lying?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yep. Instinct is a powerful tool in our line of work, sometimes our only one. So?”

She shrugs.

“He didn’t seem to be lying. Not too much information and not too little.” Deacon gives a little nod.

“Yeah, I got that too. So, that being said, looks like the front entrance is going to be short of crawling with baddies. Our best bet would probably be going through the escape tunnel.” She huffs out a brief breath of amusement.

“A coffee shop has an escape tunnel?”

“Pretty cool, right? But seriously, though, thank god for that tunnel.” Deacon turns and starts walking again, the vaultie falling in step alongside him. “It’s just outside Lexington, we’re almost there.” 

The old pipe leading to the back entrance sits just as Deacon remembers it. Thorny vines drape over the entrance and it looks just like every other piece of trash, camouflaging it from importance. And as a bonus, it seems that mirelurks have left it alone as well.

Deacon also remembers the last time he was here. He rolls his jaw, trying to banish those memories before they take up full residence.

The door opens with a wrenching groan, the red light from the alarm system hitting their eyes as they enter Switchboard’s basement. With a peek around the corner, Deacon confirms that there isn’t anything going to kill them in the immediate area. He turns back to the vault dweller.

“Alright, what we’re looking for is a prototype of Carrington’s. It may or not even still be here, but we gotta get it back if we can.”

“What’s it a prototype of?” He shrugs.

“Hell if I know. Hopefully we aren’t getting ourselves shot at for Carrington’s fancy coffee maker. The gate ahead is locked, I’ll feed it some passwords, but once we’re through, you take point, deal?”

“Deal.”

The two of them enter, she goes near the grated gate and Deacon gets to work on the terminal.

It’s short of completely fried thanks to the Institutes best efforts, but he manages to get into the core code. He mutters to himself sifting through the mangled lines of code, lightly muttering to himself as he tries to work with it. He’s counting on the fact that the terminal is pre-war, and not the tech that the Institute is used to working with. They always want to make everything so damn complicated for the sake of making things complicated.

With a few more taps on the terminal, the locks disengage from the door.

“Gotcha, you Institute bastards,” he celebrates quietly. The both of them unholster their guns and Deacon follows behind her through the gate.

Deacon takes a centering breath, entering the rest of the escape tunnel. A wave of residual anxiety licks up his ribs as his subconscious takes him back to the last time he was there. Stepping over the corpses of the agents who didn’t get out doesn’t help.

He instead fixes his attention on the vaultie. He reminds himself that this is technically the first time he gets to see her work first hand, and uses that to focus on instead. He half expects her to be like Glory, and to go busting in, gun blazing. But so far, she’s staying low and slow, her solitary pistol held in front of her. She checks the corners before she passes them, and looks both ways down hallways before she crosses them.

When they reach the first synth, a Gen 1, he sees her stop and watch the skeletal facsimile of a human trudge through the flooded tunnel. She promptly takes aim and sends a bullet through the several metal tubes that make up its chest. It would've been a kill shot if the synth was organic, but since it’s not, it quickly recovers and starts firing towards their direction. But hey, it’s all a learning experience.

After it’s dead and they approach, she looks down at it’s sparking wires spitting out around them, yellow eyes looking up into nothing. She gives it a quick once-over, the first Gen 1 she’s probably ever seen, but certainly won’t be the last.

They continue on, the vault dweller taking point the entire time. From his time watching her fight from a distance and now up close, Deacon finds himself getting accustomed to her style quicker than he thought. He’s able to predict where she’ll focus her attention on more often than not and fills in for the spots where she doesn’t. They work off of each other with surprising ease as they fight their way through the synth and turrets spread out through Switchboard, an unspoken system falling into place with each bullet fired.

There is something about her though that gives him slight pause. It’s his job, hell his very survival, to read people. He wouldn’t be alive today if he wasn’t any good at it. And there’s something about her, simmering just below the surface, that raises his hackles a bit. It’s in the tension that she holds in her jaw and hands, in the lethal glint in her eyes as she squeezes the trigger in every fight. He knows she’s a bit of a live wire from their short conversations since they’ve first interacted, but he’d bet money that her fireyness hides something much more volatile and dangerous. Like a bonfire burning over the detonation of an atom bomb.

They reach the heart of Switchboard and Deacon finds it increasingly more difficult to focus on anything else other than his blood-stained memories of the place. The smell of ozone filling up the place at the first shot fired, the thumps of bodies hitting the ground as agents fought back, the widespread panic filling up every Railroad agent scrambling in the onslaught, the choking need to  _ just get the hell out _ .

Synths walk over the bodies of the agents still laying where they were slain and Deacon calls upon everything he has within him to not lose his outward cool.

Between him and the vaultie, the remaining synths fall to their bullets, systems going offline. It should feel like some sort of retribution, but Deacon knows that for every synth killed 100 more are being manufactured. The only way to get justice for those hurt by them, is to eradicate the Institute completely. But they’re a long way from that, so taking out some of their foot soldiers is going to have to do for now.

Deacon taps her shoulder, making her pause. He motions his head to the side and they arrive at the wall vault that would hold the prototype if it’s still there. He digs around in his pockets for the holotape with the password while she stands watch. Carrington’s voice speaks out into the room briefly and the locks begin disengaging one by one.

“Open says me,” he mutters.

He grabs the door once it finishes unlocking and swings it open. The body inside is the first thing he notices.

“Aw, hell,” he curses under his breath. “Wasn’t sure if Tommy Whispers made it out. Damn.” He looks around the vault, surprised to find most everything intact. Their object of purpose catches his attention and he gestures to it. “There’s the prototype. You hand that to Des and she’s  _ gotta _ let you in.” The vaultie goes over to it, turning it in her hands. She gives him a look. “Yeah, I still have no idea what that thing does.” She puts securely in her bag while Deacon picks up a familiar gun. He weighs it and his next actions before he turns to her. “Here,” he says, handing it out to her. “It was Tommy’s. Don’t let its size fool you; it’s a pretty legit piece of pre-war tech.” She looks to the hand-cannon and then to him.

“Are you sure? Wasn’t he your friend?”

“He’d want it to go to good use,” he says in lieu of an answer, “and I’m bettin’ you’d do that better than me.” He gives it a little shake of encouragement until she finally reaches out and grabs it. “Alright,” he claps his hands in front of him, “let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

By the time they reach the surface again, she’s tried out the Deliverer on the couple of synths and turrets in their way. She seemed pleasantly surprised, which made him content in return.

The sun sits just above the horizon, their breaths fogging out into the cold early morning air.

“So,” she says once they took out the rest of the opposition, “what next?”

“Next, you meet me back at HQ. Don’t forget to bring the prototype, that’s your ticket in.”

She nods.

“Coolio. See ya later, alligator.” He gives a little wave, activates a stealth boy and slips out and away back to the church, a strange giddiness putting a pep in his step.

\---------

As she nears the church, a flicker of hope starts in her chest. 

She’s hyper aware of the weight of the boxy prototype sitting securely in her backpack. If Deacon’s word was accurate, then it’s her only chance to get closer to the Institute. 

The hope starts to spread at the idea of her finally having a way to get closer to finding Shaun, but she quickly shuts it down before it goes any further than that. She wasn’t even  _ in  _ yet. At the moment, everything was hypothetical, and she didn’t have time to waste on hypotheticals.

She winds her way through the church, voices at the end of the catacombs slowing her steps.

“... new girl patched me up, threw me over her shoulder, and blasted our way through Switchboard.”

Four sets of eyes lock onto her at the same time as she steps into the light. Claudia stops where she stood before.

The faces are familiar from the last time, Deacon up on the top step talking with Des. 

“Impressive, right?” he asks in a smug voice.

The red haired woman turns her attention to Claudia.

“Deacon here says that you fought 100 synths single handedly, while also managing to get the prototype.”

Claudia glances over to Deacon who looks back with a placid expression, betraying nothing. She looks back to Des.

“It was certainly a wild ride,” she says, avoiding agreeing or disproving Deacon.

“I can only imagine,” she replies. “Regardless, Deacon has never talked about, or  _ lied _ about any one so highly before.”

“You’d be insane not to let her in, Des,” Deacon says, driving his point home. She sighs, giving him a near scolding look.

“That being said, let me officially welcome you to the Railroad.” Claudia nods in acknowledgement. “There’s just one last thing. We operate on secrecy. Every agent of the Railroad has a codename. As of this moment, whatever you pick will be how you are known to us.”

“Aren’t nicknames something that are given rather than chosen?”

“Not here. It’s your life, it’s your name. So, what should we call you?”

Claudia thinks for a moment. A chance to shed her old name, her old life, to become the person that can do what’s necessary to take back what was stolen. A chance to separate the past from what’s to come. 

She gives a ghost of a smile up to Des who waits patiently before she responds, cementing her future.

“Tempest.”


	7. [7]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey it's been a while so here's a little summary of what's happened so far:
> 
> Deacon watched Claudia get out of the vault, followed her around for a while.   
> They met in Diamond City while Deacon was disguised as a guard.   
> They met again in Goodneighbor when Deacon broke into Claudia's hotel room.  
> Claudia went to the church.  
> They went to the Third Rail to meet the tourist.  
> They cleared out switchboard.  
> Claudia officially joined the Railroad and got the codename Tempest.

Deacon is weird, she decides. But then again, she had decided that a while ago.

Sometimes, she thinks he really likes the sound of his own voice with how he’ll go on about random shit, talking just to talk. Then sometimes the man’s so quiet that she frequently forgets that he’s following her and has to catch herself before she shoots him. That isn’t helped by the fact that he has a proclivity for changing clothes near every hour.

He fidgets almost constantly. It’s common for his fingertips to drum on the surface of his thigh where his hands hang down his sides, erratically, for the most part. Or he’ll snap off a piece of a branch to flip around in his fingers to keep his hands occupied instead. At first, it made Claudia antsy, his restlessness rubbing off on her, but she eventually got used to it.

Which is also something that she didn’t expect to happen as quickly as it did. Claudia got used to his presence almost immediately. She finds it odd how easily they work off of each other, or at least, how they have so far. She’s only ever traveled with Dogmeat, and has kept mostly to herself other than that. And according to the rest of the Railroad, as well as Deacon himself, this is the first time in a while that  _ he’s _ taken up a partner too. That must be it, she supposes. Two lone wanderers finding an equilibrium between them. 

Ever since she officially joined the Railroad, he’s traveled with her. At first she wasn’t sure what to make about that, not sure if she could get used to dealing with another human being for more than a passing conversation. He was insistent, however, that the two of them running together would be helpful for them both. He’d move information from the rest of the Commonwealth back to HQ, and she’d have someone to watch her back.

He hasn’t left her for dead so far. So there’s that.

“You sure are… thorough. You know that?” Deacon calls from the other side of the hill. Claudia takes back her hand after digging around in the pockets of the dead raider at her feet. She shakes the stimpak taken from the body in her hand towards him as she does so.

“Not like they’ll need it anymore.” She tosses it over to him and straightens up as he catches it. He uncaps it and injects it above his hip near to where one of the raider’s bullets nicked him a little too close for comfort.

Dogmeat comes trotting back out from the outpost towards them, tail wagging. Claudia gives him a pat between the ears and the three of them descend down to the small brick building. 

Shortly after being introduced to PAM, the modified assaultron sent them on a mission to clear out a spot that was deemed adequate by the predicting machine and secure it as a new safehouse. Claudia hasn’t traveled this far north since leaving the vault, but she’s had Outpost Zimonja on her radar for a time due to the raiders that now lay dead in the hills surrounding the area. Hopefully Preston will find something else to worry about now that the place is clear. Two birds, one stone. 

“So, you getting used to the Railroad yet?” Deacon asks as she takes out the lantern from her pack and sets it on the edge of one of the platforms in view of the road. She nods and takes out a busted lighter. “We’re like any dysfunctional family. But with guns.” Claudia looks up at him and gives him an amused smile.

She lifts up the glass to the lantern and lights it up. Deacon reaches into his own stash of junk and grabs a stubby piece of chalk. He draws the safehouse rail sign on the bricks of the outpost.

“I dub thee Mercer,” he says to the building, finishing the roof on the rail sign. He looks around the small space, dusting his hands off. “Not too bad,” he says contemplatively, “not what I’d expect PAM to go for, but not bad.”

She huffs. “What? Expecting another underground lair?”

“Yeah, actually. PAM’s always talking about how being underground is the best way to keep operations hidden.”

“Oh.”

“But I guess there’s only so many unoccupied holes in the ground. Mole rats make for some bad roommates.”

“Speaking from experience?” she teases.

“Absolutely. Ask anyone at HQ and they’ll tell you of the time we found a colony of mole rats that understood human language. We had to work with them in order to track down a missing package. You’d be surprised at how spiteful the little bastards can be.”

That’s another thing about him. Deacon and his stories. Or more-so, the  _ mention _ of his stories. The way he casually brings them up sometimes leaves her doing a double take. They range from the absurd to the mundane, and she’s still not sure which is more believable. Sometimes she thinks he just can’t help himself. But even she has to admit that, regardless of their level of genuineness, they do tend to be amusing. 

Claudia chuckles and shakes her head, looking out to the horizon. “It’s almost sunrise. You wanna stay here or hike back?” 

Deacon looks off to the distance, the barest amount of sunlight slipping up over the horizon glinting off his glasses. He kisses his teeth as he thinks and adjusts his rifle’s strap over his chest.

“Let’s head on back. We should make good time if we don’t run into too much trouble.”

\----------

_ Famous last words, old man. _

A trio of Gunners, a sentrybot, and a radscorpion later, they finally manage to just make it to around that old cemetery. The sun is well established in the sky by this point. Tempest’s cheek is cut open with the beginnings of a gnarly bruise around it courtesy of a Gunner with a security baton. She’ll be sporting that for a few days.

Dogmeat’s huffing and puffing like a racehorse, blood in his teeth and a catch in his step. Poor boy’s bandana got ripped up too.

Deacon’s ‘bout on the same level. Damn near twisted his ankle trying to out maneuver the giant arachnid, and barely caught himself from tumbling down a cliff doing so. He’s feeling it now, but he knows he’s  _ really  _ going to be feeling it tomorrow. He hopes that at least one of the mattresses at HQ will be open tonight so he doesn’t have to crash on a couch, his achy bones protesting at the very thought.

The cold autumn sun shines down, not a cloud in the sky. It’s a clear morning, visibility high, and they still got at least another hour’s hike until they make it back to the church.

Deacon picks at the leather of his rifle strap with the side of his thumb nail, teeth worrying the inside of his cheek. There’s a flap of wings off in his peripheral and he mentally kicks himself for not suggesting they stay at Mercer for the day.

He sees Tempest glance at him from time to time out of the corner of her eye. Dogmeat limply trots in the path ahead of them, nose going a mile a minute. They continue heading south for a while when Tem starts veering off course a bit.

Deacon says nothing about it, accustomed to her wandering habits, but his instincts bristle at the thought of lingering out in the daylight for any longer than they have to. He’s already spotted a few Watchers circling the sky since they left and it’s only morning. 

Tempest leads them through the brush to the road, putting them in even more open space. He’s about to suggest they  _ don’t _ do that, but she interrupts him before he can start.

“You wanna stop and hang for a bit?” He shrugs nonchalantly, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief.

“Sure. I’ve got a rock in my shoe and it’s been driving me crazy for the past mile.” She nods and they continue down the road a short distance.

A blue boat house along the waterway comes into view and Tempest heads towards it. Deacon readies his gun, prepared to clear out whatever else has been squatting there, but sees Tem put her gun away.

Dogmeat gallops up to the door like he’s done it a hundred times already. He waits patiently by the door for the two humans to catch up.

The windows are boarded up, a couple holes chewed through the walls patched and reinforced with plywood and cinder blocks. The house looks like every other abandoned piece of wreckage out in the Commonwealth, not a thing about it looks extraordinary. But as they near to the front porch, Deacon notices the front door and how utterly out of place it looks compared to the rest of the place. 

Tempest gets to the door, Dogmeat dancing in place impatiently by her feet. She takes out the screwdriver she always has on her and shimmies it into a barely noticeable space between the door and the jamb. With it through the space, she pushes down on it sharply, the sound of something unlatching from inside the house. Tem takes the screwdriver back, stores it away, and opens the now unbarred door. Dogmeat noses his way inside, Deacon and Tem following behind him.

The inside is just about as unremarkable as the outside. There's a ratty couch which Dogmeat wastes no time hopping up on to to lick his wounds and a short coffee table off to the side. An unlit lantern sits on the table next to an unmarked cooler. There’s a mattress and a sleeping bag on the floor along the wall farthest from the door.

Tem walks in, sliding her pack off and letting it hit the ground near the archway to his left. Walking farther in, Deacon notices the leftovers of a kitchen and a dining table in the room where she walks into. 

A homey, post-apocalyptic settler’s dream.

“Cozy,” he says standing off to the side. 

“Better than nothing,” Tempest replies. Deacon walks into the kitchen then, pulling out one of the two chairs by the table, and all but falls into it. He just barely suppresses a groan of relief.

“It’s a pretty nice piece of real estate ya got here.”

She looks over to him, giving him a calculating side-eye, weighing her next words.

“Got a few places here and there,” she says eventually, crouching down to one to the less busted up cupboards.

_ Curious. But not totally unexpected. _

“Hungry?” she asks over her shoulder.

“Wow, Tem, bed  _ and  _ breakfast? You should charge for this, could be making a fortune.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” she replies, grabbing a few things from the cupboard before closing it back up.

Tempest opens up one of the cans in her hand, releasing the smell of musty dog food that puts a little pep in Dogmeat’s step as he hops off the couch and waddles on over. She puts the open can on the ground and the mutt digs in with sloppy sounds.

She walks over to the table, placing a spread of snackage and a couple of waters on the surface before dragging her bag over to the empty chair at the head of the table where she sits down. She pulls out a crumpled pack of smokes from her back pocket, tapping one out into her hand. It finally lights when her lighter decides to cooperate and the smell of irradiated tobacco fills the air. Deacon grabs a crumpled box of Sugar Bombs while Tempest digs around in her bag, pulling out her little first aid kit.

Deacon stretches his legs out under the table, knees satisfyingly snapping as they straighten. Oh yeah, hiking around the wastes tomorrow is gonna be a bitch and a half.

He pops pieces of the dusty cereal in his mouth, watching Tem try to clean up her face, cigarette balanced casually out of the corner of her mouth as she works. She cracked open one of the cans of water and is trying to clean off the cut as best as she can. Her face is stuck in a perpetual wince as she continues putting pressure on the ever darkening bruise mottling her cheekbone.

Didn’t break the bone, at least. Could be worse.

They sit in amiable silence for a while, the waves of the water hitting the foundation of the house, making the old wood creak. He feels better with something in his system, even if it is just irradiated sugar.

“So,” Deacon says, breaking the silence while she finishes up, “this place part of the Minutemen’s employee benefits package?” She exhales a sharp breath, the closest thing to a chuckle he’s heard from her. One of her little tells he’s noticed that says she’s not so doom and gloom all the time. Tempest puts away her kit, snubbing the last of her cigarette on the bottom of her boot.

“Hardly,” she drawls. She reaches over and grabs some food for herself. Deacon’s eyes stay on her from behind his glasses.

Deacon knows she’s the General, but he knows that she doesn’t know that he knows. And because he knows that she knows that she’s the General, thinking that she knows that he doesn’t know, he knows that using what he knows and what she thinks she knows he knows he can put his new partner through her first test.

At least he thinks he knows. 

Fuck, how much of these Sugar Bombs has he had?

Whatever.

He puts the near empty box of cereal on the table and pushes it out of reach from himself. He leans back in his chair, locking his fingers together behind his head.

“I’m just saying, with how much weight you’ve been pulling with those guys, you’d think they’d put it to better use than as an errand girl.”

She shrugs.

“What can I say? I’m just really jonesing for that employee of the month title,” Tempest says dryly. Deacon grins. He switches up tactics.

“Everyone was pretty surprised when news of the Minutemen started hitting the streets again.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, after their last big hooplah of expected disasters, I can’t imagine there’s that much faith put into the jolly ol’ blue boys anymore,” Deacon says casually. If there’s one thing he knows about the Minutemen, it’s that any slight against their self-imposed honor makes their self-righteous hero complexes come spitting out like a rabid dog on Jet.

She just shrugs again.

“I’d imagine.” Deacon pauses.

“I don’t know about you, but giving big power like that to little people doesn’t usually end well.” 

She nods over her drink.

“Preaching to the choir.”

Hm. Alright. New tactic, then.

“But what is it  _ you’re  _ getting out of it? You don’t really strike me as the kind of woman to go play fetch for some farmers.”

An amused flicker lights up her eyes.

“Someone’s gotta do it. What else would I be doing instead?”

“Oh, I dunno, take up knitting, go on a vacation to New Vegas, start a neighborhood book club. You know, literally anything else.”

“Maybe I’ve already done those things.”

“Oh really? Which one? No, wait, let me guess…” he pauses for dramatic effect, “knitting,” he says finally.

“You seem very sure of that.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Maybe. How would you know that I  _ don’t _ have a bookclub around somewhere?” 

“It’s my job to know things.” He winks at her even though he knows she can’t see it.

“So I’ve noticed.” 

A smile sneaks onto Deacon’s face as she watches him, waiting patiently to verbally parry his next move. An immovable object vs. an unstoppable force.

“Fair enough,” he says, surrendering for now. She nods a little, giving him one of her looks, and gets up to clean up the now empty can of dog food. Deacon’s eyes follow her.

-+-

Drummer Boy was on them as soon as they breached the archway to HQ. 

To no one’s surprise, especially Deacon’s, it’s something to do with Augusta. The Safehouse was relatively new, implemented just before Switchboard was hit, and since then has been nothing but a series of unfortunate events, made even worse by the thin stretching of resources from HQ.

Not including the brand spankin’ new Mercer, Augusta is one of the few precious Safehouses still in the circuit. It’s been run ragged these past couple of months. Deacon has tried to talk to Des about it, that moving that many synths through one avenue will burn it out faster than they could even hope to deal with, but it was met with the same ol’ dismissal that he should just get used to. 

Regardless, they sent out a dead drop and needed a couple of heavys to come take care of a few less than friendly neighbors.

Said neighbors were a troupe of raiders that had hunkered down in what used to be parts of an old strip mall. They were rooted in deep, but the two of them together cleared the place out with minimal injury. 

Tempest had left Dogmeat behind at the church. Him and Tinker Tom got along like a house on fire, so Tem let the pup take a breather. They now head back to HQ to give the news to Desdemona. 

“Hey, hold on a second,” Tempest says suddenly, veering off course. She heads over to the shell of a darkened diner. She tries the door, finding it locked as it jolts against the frame. Tem kneels down, getting to work on the lock. Deacon situates himself at her 6 as she does so, facing out to the dusty road beyond.

A few moments later and she stands, pushing open the now unlocked door. Deacon puts the safety of his shotgun off and follows in after her.

They creep in, shoes rolling across warped, debris-strewn linoleum. The diner is dim, what little glass still left in the windows letting in weak ash-colored light. The red plastic booths along the walls are cracked and peeling, some have been chewed through near the ground by some desperate animal dead and gone by now. Shattered light bulbs hang by sketchy looking wires and cords above the diner bar which is covered in a solid inch of dust and other non identifiable gunk that Deacon would really rather not think too much about.

The heart of the diner is empty. No wheezing of mole rats or skittering of radroaches. Tempest takes point and walks around the bar and to the kitchen in the back. Deacon hangs back, double checking before going in after her.

He hears her stomping around back there, signaling that the place is cleared. They pass each other as she exits and he enters. 

The kitchen is in just as much of a mess as the rest of the place, but there’s signs of recent activity. He steps over a ratty bundle of cloth that once served as a bed roll to a handmade lantern made from an old bean can. It smells faintly of accelerant, but it hasn’t been lit in quite some time. The cabinets and shelves have been pilfered but Deacon stills checks the place for anything they could use. He goes to the back of the room to a metal door of a walk-in refrigerator. The handle sticks something fierce, making him put his entire weight down on it to get it to unlatch. He opens the door just a crack before the unfortunately familiar scent of putrefying flesh smacks him in the face. He smothers a gag into his elbow and slams the door shut as fast as he can, quickly giving up that line of investigation.

Clearing his throat and forcing any bile back down, he leaves the kitchen. Tempest is standing by one of the old jukeboxes, looking down into the dusty recesses of the machine where the names of songs and the people who sang them once sat. Her finger sits and traces small shapes on the plastic bubble case. Deacon does nothing but watch her for a heartbeat, her posture slack, her eyes unfocused.

He walks over then, purposefully stepping on a particularly crunchy part of the nuke-blasted tiled floor. She doesn’t turn to acknowledge him, but he knows she’s back to earth again from the hitch in her breath at the sound. Deacon leans on the side of the jukebox, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“I’m surprised this thing’s still here, there’s a lot of good scrap in these bad boys.” He taps the top of it. “Tinker once tried to fix one up once, but it would only ever play ‘Sweet Caroline’, but like,  _ really _ slowed down. Des eventually made him throw it out.”

Tem’s lip quirks up. She steps back from the jukebox and unholsters her pistol. “Watch out,” she warns, and Deacon hops back from the machine. She fires at the plastic covering, shattering the front of it into pieces. She busts the rest of it out of her way so she can reach a hand in. Most of the slots are empty except for two, and she grabs onto the remaining holotapes at the bottom, flipping them around in her hands. Any writing that may have been on them at one point has long been faded away.

“Think anything’s on them?” he asks. She shrugs.

“We’ll find out.” She stores them away in her pack.

They turn to leave, her curiosity sated for now, when a bullet whizzes between their heads and lodges into the plaster wall behind them. They drop to the ground and another shot fires into the diner, hitting an upturned table to the front of them. 

Deacon and Tempest roll away from each other. Tempest gets behind an endcap booth near below the window. Deacon crouches behind the bar.

Voices float in through the windows, but he’s not sure how many are really out there.

“Come on out, little girl!” a gruff voice calls out. Raiders, he thinks, probably those that ran with the ones they just wiped out.

Deacon can see where Tem is crouched, but not much else, so he peeks around the bar. He spots the top of a mangy head of hair poking out from the bottom of the widow and pulls himself back behind cover. He quietly clears his throat.

“Who? Lil’ ol’ me?” Deacon says in as high-pitched a voice as he can manage, laying on a thick southern drawl. Tempest’s head rolls towards him, a look of visceral unbelief bugging out her features to almost cartoonish proportions. 

_ “What the fuck?!” _ she mouths at him. He puts his finger to his lips. 

“Yeah, come on, girlie, we just wanna talk to ya,” the same raider replies. Tempest shakes her head but gets up from her spot and sneaks down along the line of booths, staying low and out of the line of sight from the window. She creeps to the other side of the diner, out of Deacon’s line of view.

“Oh, I don’t know. My meemaw said I shouldn’t talk to strangers.” Deacon can feel Tempest’s eye roll from here. He hears steps closer to the window and the next time the raider talks, he’s talking straight into the diner.

“Don’t you worry about that, now, doll.” Deacon hears the raider hoist himself up through the window and crawl over the table. He walks closer to where Deacon hides.

Before either one of them can say anything more, gunfire splits the silence from outside. The raider spins around and makes a break for the window once more. Deacon peers around the bar once more just as the raider hauls himself back out the diner.

Deacon rushes out from cover, running to the window. He steps onto the table and grabs hold of the top of the windowsill.

_ “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” _ he shouts, swinging off of the window. The startled raider whips around and is met with the soles of Deacon’s shoes slamming into his face.

Dust billows out from under the raider as he ungracefully lands and Deacon rolls off of him, slinging his rifle off his back. Before the raider can do anything else, Deacon puts a bullet right between his eyes.

With that, the dust is settled. Tempest silently stands not too far from him, two dead raiders at her feet. He steps over to her. 

Tempest watches him, face worryingly blank, and it makes him wonder whether or not he’s hit her limit already, until a light flares up in the depths of her eyes and her face breaks into a wide grin.

Her laugh is as sudden as a crack of lightning, filling up the dusty silence with rolling tenors of pure, unadulterated joy. With her head tilted up to the sky, blood drying on her face, she’s almost a complete stranger, transformed into an image completely in contrast to her death-strewn surroundings.

Deacon wonders if he should feel concerned for her wellbeing (as well as his, now that he thinks of it), but he finds that he can’t help the smile that settles onto his features. He’s not sure what he said was  _ that _ funny, but her laughter is as contagious as it is foreign and it draws out a laugh of his own.

She folds in half, gasping in air between the throes of her laughter, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. 

“For fuckssake, Dee,” she chokes out through watery chuckles. She stands up straighter, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Deacon remains silent, captivated by the vision in front of him. 

Tempest stands up now that she’s gained some control of herself once more, tears lining the borders of her eyes. Her face is flushed, bringing to it a glow that has nothing to do with radiation for once. Her smile is a graceful curve, giving her an uncharacteristic gentleness that he’d never would have been able to picture her with before now.

He’s suddenly struck through the chest with a shard of anxiety, and he’s harshly reminded about how little he actually knows about the person in front of him, no matter how much he tries to delude himself otherwise.  _ Danger, danger! _ his mind yells at him,  _ Get out while you can! Danger and downfall with a smile! _

But, damn him, if it wasn’t a sight.


	8. [8]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tempest and Deacon meet H2-22

_ 1 _

_ 2 _

_ 3 _

_ 4 and a half _

Claudia’s eyes skip along the wooden supports that hang high above her head. Dust motes fly around her line of vision, lit up by the broken beams of the fading sun in the windows.

_ 5 _

_ 6 _

_ 7 _

She sits sprawled out in a pew. Her head rests on the back of it, hands folded on her stomach. 

The neighborhood’s quiet, only the sounds of settling wood echo through the empty church.

She had never heard of this church before the war, not venturing to this part of town often. Ironically, she thinks she’s probably seen more of the world  _ now _ than she ever imagined she would  _ then. _

_ “Who’da thought,”  _ she hears Nate say,  _ “That it’d only take the end of the world for you to get out of the house more often.” _ She rolls her eyes.

Nate loved the city. Spent most of his life in Brooklyn and took to Boston like a fish to water in the short time he was there. Personally, it had always made Claudia want to scratch her skin off being around that much all at once. 

But she remembers when Nate took her back home to meet his family, to see the city through his eyes. Her first trip to New York was nothing short of complete sensory overload, and would have been near undoable had he not been there. But he was. In his never ending patience. Like always.

She sucks in a quiet, sharp breath, fingers coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose and massage the tension she feels building up behind her eyes.

The picture of the two of them burns through the chest pocket inside of her jacket.

_ “Hey, remember that movie they were playing in the cinema?”  _ Nate says seemingly out of nowhere,  _ “And they said that tickets were sold out so the two of us snuck in?”  _ She smiles. She can hear the smile in his voice as well.  _ “Crammed in the very back, peeking up over the seats just to see only half the screen.”  _ He chuckles warmly.  _ “Ah, shit, what was the name of that movie again, baby? Something weird,” _ He snaps his fingers as he tries to recall.  _ “‘A’ something.” _

“Streetcar Named Desire.”

“What was that, boss?”

Claudia turns her head to look behind her. Deacon stands leaning against the wall near the entrance to the church, looking over to her. She shakes her head and sits up.

“Nothing.” She pushes the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees stars. Claudia stands and walks over to him, wiping the dust off her pants. “How much longer do you think til they get here?” He watches her silently for a moment before he shrugs, stamping out the butt of his cigarette and flicking it to the side. 

“Shouldn’t be too long, the sun’s pretty much down by now.” He pushes off from the wall.

As if summoned by their conversation, a man in a suit appears in the doorway. Claudia’s hand whips down to her pistol and Deacon spins around, raising his rifle. He stops when he sees who it is, making her pause.

“Good, you’re here,” the man says and she remembers him from Bunker Hill. Stockton walks into the church and Claudia spots the cowering form of a man trailing closely behind him. 

Stockton takes a quick cursory glance around the interior of the building before turning to the agents.

“I can’t stay long. There will be someone here shortly to take you to the safehouse,” he addresses them. Stockton then turns behind him, gesturing to his tag along. “This is H2-22. H2, these are the people I told you about. They’re here to help.”

H2-22’s dressed in raggedy, patchworked clothes that are a couple sizes too big for him, swallowing him up in the ratty cloth. His hair and face are a mess, but even underneath the dirt, Claudia can tell his short ginger locks are in better condition than would be found in any natural born wastelander. His wide eyes dart around at every little noise and shadow; an all too familiar deer in the headlights look. He doesn’t look Claudia or Deacon in the eye, instead further curling in on himself, hands clasped tightly to himself.

A mushy feeling wells up in Claudia’s chest taking in the sight of the synth. She’s not sure if it’s heartbreak or hope that makes her smile at him, but she does regardless. Her head tilts down ever so slightly to get him to look up at her, her eyes softening once he does. 

“Hello, H2,” she says softly. He doesn’t look away and gives a small attempt of a smile back.

“H-hello,” he whispers, voice cracking from the effort.

Claudia raises her hand out in front of her, causing H2 to freeze and his eyes to shoot back down to watch it rise. She does nothing beyond that, holding it out towards him, letting him decide what to do next.

He stays frozen for a few moments, eyes flipping up to her and her hand and back again. She thinks he’s not going to take it and starts lowering her hand when his arms start to unfurl from himself. Timidly, as if she’s going to reach out and bite him, he raises his hand and takes hers. Claudia lightly curls her hand around his, giving him the space to pull back if he needs, and gives a gentle shake. The mushy feeling intensifies when his smile widens.

“Nice to meet ya, pal,” Deacon says next to her, an oddly soft tone to his voice Claudia hasn’t heard before. She lets go of the synth’s hand and he curls it back up to his chest.

“You too,” H2 replies.

Stockton walks away from the three of them to the window, wasting no time in lighting the lantern sitting on the sill. “There,” he says and starts off to the exit. “Someone should be here soon. Remember what we talked about, H2,” he says pointedly to the synth.

H2 nods. “Y-yes.”

“Good. Good luck,” and he promptly leaves.

H2 watches Stockton leave with a hint of anxiety, rocking on his feet. He looks over Deacon and Claudia, holding himself even tighter. Deacon looks at him out of the corner of his eye, giving him a relaxed smirk.

“First time?” he asks the synth in an attempt to loosen tension that has filled up the church. All it really manages to do is confuse H2 further, leaving him stuttering a moment for an answer. Claudia shoots her partner a glare behind H2’s back. He just shrugs.

She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling before looking back in front of her, vision landing on the shadow of a person coming around the side of the church to the entrance.

Claudia steps in place in front of H2 and steadies her pistol on the figure in the doorway.

“Woah, woah,” the stranger says, putting his hands up, “It’s alright. I’m a friend.”

“You got a geiger counter?” she asks. The man nods in recognition.

“Right, yeah, mine is in the shop. There. All good, now?” He puts his hands up in a questioning manner rather than in surrender before lowering them altogether. Claudia responds by lowering her gun but keeping it unholstered. 

H2 pokes his head out from around Claudia but neither of them move from their spots.

“I’m High Rise,” the stranger introduces himself. He points to Claudia. “And you must be Tempest, right? New girl?” She nods. High Rise looks over to Deacon and clicks his tongue. “Deacon, you sonofabitch, I thought that was you. Not giving the rookie hell, are you?” Deacon dramatically gapes at High Rise and clutches his figurative pearls, feigning insult.

“I’ll have you know that I am the  _ picture  _ of innocence,” Deacon says. 

High Rise guffaws. “And I’m the mayor of Goodneighbor,” he quips back. He claps his hands together and finally turns to the synth. “And you’re H2-22.”

“T-the man with the hat s-said I shouldn’t talk much.” 

“He was right. You’re gonna need new memories and a new face before it’s safe to do too much of that. But first we’re gonna take you to a nearby safehouse.” High Rise then turns to the agents. “It’s pretty quiet out there, but raiders have dug themselves in pretty deep around the route. Think you guys can take care of it if we run into any pockets?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Claudia responds. 

“Kicking names and taking ass is our specialty, ain’t that right Tem?” Deacon holds up his hand for a high five from Claudia but quickly takes it back. “Wait, no, that’s not right,” he mumbles. 

“Great,” High Rise says, “then let’s head out.”

The night is about as quiet as to be expected when the group leave the church. High Rise takes point while Deacon hangs back, leaving Claudia to walk in the middle with H2 who seems to have attached himself to her side. She doesn’t mind much, most of her focus going out to spot danger, anyway.

High Rise leads them north closer to campus grounds and the waterway. Orange pockets of light from distant fires shine faintly over the buildings. 

Claudia’s jaw locks shut. Her eyes scan the rooftops and every dark corner of the street as fast as she can. The grip she has on her gun creaks from the tension that she holds herself together with. The only sounds she can hear is the heavy pulse of blood starting to pick up in her ears and footsteps from the four of them. 

Suddenly, Deacon trains his rifle in front of him.

“Company,” he warns moments before gunfire breaks the air. The group breaks off from each other. 

Claudia pulls H2 to the ground as bullets spike up the dirt where he was standing. She pushes him down behind part of a chipped concrete railing. He cowers in on himself, arms wrapped around his head, knees pulled up to his chin. 

She pokes her head out of cover for a moment and sees a raider running to closer cover. Deacon’s disappeared off somewhere, but she can hear his gun going off amongst the raiders. High Rise slides in beside them.

“Go,” he says to Claudia, “I got H2. I’ll cover you”

With another glance, she makes a break for a building further along the bridge, throwing herself into the alley. Bullets whiz past her, but High Rise’s fire forces the raiders farther into cover. In her new vantage point she has a clear shot to a crouching raider and quickly takes them out of the fight.

Her heart pounds in her ears, making her unable to hear his approach, but suddenly Deacon is by her side.

“Fancy meetin’ you here, boss,” he says casually.

They both duck as bullets shoot into the paneling of the house opposite of them. Deacon aims and fires his rifle over Claudia’s shoulder. 

“Come here often?” he asks as he reloads another magazine.

Claudia ignores him and peeks back out. She sees a raider with a machete collapse in the middle of the street thanks to High Rise and at least four other points of gunfire coming up from ahead. She hasn’t heard any snipers other than the one right next to her, so she’s confident that they won’t have to deal with that. She estimates five remaining raiders just to be safe and turns back to Deacon, checking the ammo she has left.

“I’m going to try and drive them out, cover me.”

Without thinking, she holds her fist out to him. Deacon stops for a moment. She blinks, realizes what she’s doing, and starts to take her hand back when he bumps it with his. Trying not to dwell on that odd bit of auto-pilot, she tears off from cover, running along the bridgeway.

She slides in behind a piece of rubble. There’s a raider within plain sight of her who realizes this at the same time she does. Claudia’s shots drive them into an awkward position. Realizing this, they backtrack and try to make a break for it. They don’t get far before a shot from somewhere behind her brings them to the ground. Claudia gets up and runs to advance to further cover.

All of the sudden, Claudia’s breath is ripped from her and she’s face down in the dirt. The pain comes a dizzying moment later. 

Pain like liquid fire pours from her shoulder. Her face goes numb and her vision gets overrun with a flurry of bright, white dots. A strangled noise warbles out of her throat once her lungs stop constricting. She rolls over onto her back and lifts the hand from her unwounded side up to the source of the flames. It comes back red and slick. There’s gunfire all around her.

Then, there are more hands on her. Larger, rougher ones, and they latch on to her and drag her through the dirt.

She flails, crying out at the white-hot agony that pulses through her whole body at the sudden movement.

A strained, “Easy, boss,” murmurs into her ear and she stops fighting. Deacon drags her off to the side. She all but falls back onto whatever is propping her up.

Deacon kneels beside her, rifle leveled over their hiding spot and shoots off into the distance.

She looks down at herself. The sight of the steady stream of blood coming down and staining her side nearly makes her faint and she forces herself to look away. 

Deacon cocks his rifle. “Keep pressure on it, Tem.” He fires again.

His words snap her back closer to earth and she does what he says, hissing as soon as she grabs her shoulder. 

In what could have been minutes or an hour later, the fire fight stops. Deacon puts his rifle on the ground to the side and crouches down in front of her as the dust clears. He doesn’t say a word, hands moving in a blur of motion. If she didn’t know better she would say he’s frenzied.

He grabs her hand and gingerly peels it off from her shoulder. Her palm comes back crusted with blood.

Her breath sounds deafening in her own ears. The cotton starts clogging up her brain. Her teeth feel buzzy and she’s pretty sure she’s shaking like a leaf, but at least she can barely feel much of anything now.

She’s aware of Deacon doing something. She sees his hands moving, shifting, pressing. She thinks that she gets tilted a bit before coming back up. With the half-speed her brain is chugging along with, it’s anyone’s guess. 

“Ground control to Major Tempest.” Deacon says abruptly. He switches out the hand gripping her shoulder to reach around to his pack. “Talk to me, boss.”

“I’ve been shot,” she croaks.

“Sure looks like it,” he says. His pack hits the ground and he opens it up.

“I got shot.”

“Uh-huh.” He takes his hand from her shoulder. His finger prods the backside of it. Claudia can barely feel it through the buzzing in her skull. “Looks like it went straight through,” he says quietly. Or it could just be that her brain has decided it’s a good time to shut down now.

A sharp pinch in her arm brings her back. Deacon discards a stimpak.

“Sorry,” she whispers although she doesn’t know why.

“Happens to the best of us.” 

Claudia leans her head back, looking up and off into nothing.

“It hurt,” she mumbles. Deacon tightly ties something around her arm.

“Bullets are pesky like that.”

“I’ve never been shot.”

Deacon stops for a heartbeat but says nothing. Two pairs of footsteps approach them.

“We still in one piece?” High Rise asks as he nears.

“Not sure. We might need to amputate,” Deacon replies nonchalantly. High Rise and H2 reach them, then, just as Deacon stands and straps his pack back on. He reaches down and grabs Claudia’s hand, hauling her to her feet with a stifled groan and a wave of vertigo.

“A-are you alright?” H2 asks, forgetting about his mission of silence. Claudia looks over to him, at his look of genuine concern, and nods. She tries to straighten up as much as she can.

“All good,” is all she can manage to reply with.

“We’re almost at the safehouse. You two should chill for a bit. That’ll probably need stitches,” High Rise says, pointing to Claudia. Without further ado, he leads them on their path.

The rest follow. Deacon stays at her side. Claudia looks down at her shoulder as they walk. Her shirt is pretty much unsalvageable, but considering that she’s upright and walking, that is the least of her worries.

She thanks the gods above when they get to the safehouse without further conflict. High Rise leads them into the lobby of an old office building.

“This is my place, Ticon,” he says, “If you ever need a place to lay low for a while or a quick power nap, you’re always welcome. I’m going to go get H2 settled in and ready for his next transport. And thank you guys for your help. Wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“No problem,” Claudia says simply and the group ascend further into the building. 

Ticon is bustling with synths and agents alike. The air seems to buzz with energy, and unlike the anxiety and looming doom prevalent back at HQ, it’s of the kind that reminds Claudia of the aftermath of an adrenaline rush, leaving behind the almost delirious glee that comes from surviving the unsurvivable. 

Camaraderie fills the building with a natural ease. She hears laughter come from a floor above her. A few people stand in a small kitchen area, talking casually. There’s a small group playing cards off to the side. People pass each other with smiles, nods, and the occasional pat on the back. It’s lighter here.

She stands listlessly in the entranceway feeling like an intruder.

“Good ol’ Ticon,” Deacon says quietly next to her, startling her out of her minor stupor. He starts walking up the stairs, and not knowing what else to do, Claudia falls in step with him. The hallways are slightly cramped but no one seems to mind the lack of comfortable personal space as Claudia and Deacon shuffle on their way. 

Deacon pokes his head into a room and walks in after a quick scan. It’s a small room with nothing but a bed, a chair, and a chest in it and a small, circular window on the far wall. He walks in, grabs the chair and slings it to the side of the bed. He goes and opens up the chest and digs around for a moment before pulling out a dingy white medkit. Deacon takes it and sits in the chair, motioning to the bed for Claudia to sit.

She does, and Deacon opens the medkit and puts it on the bed next to her. They sit in silence while he undoes the makeshift bandana tourniquet from her shoulder. The bleeding has slowed significantly, thanks in part to the stimpak. 

Deacon takes out a small pair of scissors from the medkit. Starting at the collar of her shirt, he starts cutting it off. Claudia shifts uncomfortably but he doesn’t say anything so neither does she. If she had the blood to spare, she knows her cheeks would be bright red. He peels her bloodstained shirt off and tosses it to the side. The sounds of Ticon filter in from the hallway and the floors above and below in the otherwise quiet room.

She feels like she should say something, to draw attention away from the fact that she’s half-naked if anything, but Deacon doesn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation.

In fact, he seems almost hyper-focused on playing medic right now. His hands are confident and sure, and even when she jumps from the burn of an alcohol-soaked rag pressing into the bullet wound, he doesn’t touch her anymore than he has too, which fills Claudia with no small sense of ease. By the time he’s readied the needle and thread, she’s profoundly thankful that neither one of them seems to want to make this any more weirder than it has to be.

She winces at the first stitch, especially now that most of the adrenaline rush is gone. Deacon doesn’t say anything, but gives her a moment to get used to it before continuing.

Claudia looks over to him out of the corner of her eye.

“Are you alright?” she asks, immediately feeling awkward for doing so. There’s no hesitation in Deacon’s actions as he finishes off a stitch and goes in for another one.

“Peachy,” he replies. He’s quiet for a moment before he looks up at her over his glasses. “Why?” She shrugs her free shoulder.

“I don’t know. You’ve just been…” her eyes float around the room as she tries to think of the right word, “...quiet, I guess.” He gives her a humorless half smile.

“Is that your polite way of telling me I talk too much?”

She huffs, restraining an eye roll.

“No-- it’s just…” she flounders for a second, “Nevermind,” she finishes quietly.

Deacon goes back to finish stitching her up. She sees the muscles in his jaw roll as he clenches and grinds his teeth, the twitch coming back. They fall back into silence and Claudia thinks he’s dropped the subject when he speaks up again.

“Back there,” he pauses as he takes out a relatively clean gauze bandage, “when you got hit. You hit the ground, like,” he snaps his fingers. He clears his throat, shrugs a bit, and digs around in the medkit some more. Disquiet radiates off of him in waves. “I don’t know. I thought you got got, I guess.”

He clears his throat again and secures the bandage to her.

Claudia finds herself in an odd, albeit slightly uncomfortable, spot. Her first impression of Deacon was less than ideal, obviously. Not to mention the fact that the man tested her tolerance for bullshit on the regular. But he always knew when to quit before she got actually pissed off. She wonders how that smartass mouth of his hasn’t gotten him killed yet. He seems to always know which buttons to push and where they are no matter who he’s talking to. A social chameleon at best and a pathological liar at worst. Half of the time she expects to look over and find him gone for good, bugged out to wherever men like him make their scene. 

But if she’s being honest with herself, he’s the closest to an actual friend that she has in the world. No matter how flighty he gets or how many personas he switches through, he’s stuck by her side since day one. She realizes how significant that is for a man like him, and how much that actually means to her. Because no matter what she tries to convince herself otherwise, having someone by her side means  _ a lot. _ No matter how scary of a thought that is. And whether or not it means that much just because that person is  _ Deacon, _ she doesn’t know.

The energy of the room feels thick and congested, restless, even. It’s fucking unbearable. 

“Don’t tell me Lone Wolf Deacon’s getting attached, now,” she says in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It seems to have worked a bit, Deacon spluttering out a breathy chuckle and breaking out into a grin.

“Well, you know, new agents are such a headache to housetrain, I wouldn’t want to start all over from scratch.”

She scoffs and smiles. “Yeah, right.”

“Honest truth. Domestication is tricky business.”

Deacon puts the medkit away and stands up. He grabs his pack and rummages around in it. He pulls out a well worn flannel and tosses it in Claudia’s lap.

“I think that’s that only thing I got that will fit the best,” he says. She takes it and slides her uninjured arm through, taking her time to shimmy the other one. It’s loose and baggy, but at least she’s not half naked anymore. “I’m going to go mosey around, see what’s up in this neck of the woods.” He nods over to the door. “There’s snacks in the kitchen upstairs if you get hungry.”

“Alright.” 

He turns and heads for the door when he jolts to a stop and turns back to face her.

“Oh, and uh, what was that thing back there?” Deacon asks.

“What thing?”

“You know, the…” He bumps his fists together.

_ Ah. Right. _

Claudia shakes her head and waves him off, embarrassment slowly starting to weave around her. She looks down at the shirt buttons instead of him. “I don’t know. You can just... ignore that.”

“No, no, I liked it. I’ve always wanted to have a secret handshake.” Claudia chuckles.

“It’s not much of a handshake, Dee.”

“Says who? Besides, all partners in crime need a secret handshake.”

“Is that so?” She glances back up.

“Absolutely.”

“All of them?”

“ _ All _ of them.”

“And we’re partners in crime?” she asks as she finishes buttoning her shirt.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you think so?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Dee. Might be moving a little fast, there. At least buy me dinner first,” she jokes. Deacon’s face breaks into a wide grin.

“I’ll keep that in mind, boss.”


End file.
